Fade to White
by mystica88
Summary: Another Shinigami has gone rouge and is targeting Ichigo and his friends. Ishida is the first taken and everyone has to chip in to get him back.
1. Chapter 1

Ishida stood facing the Shinigami in front of him. The wind ruffled his hair and mantel of his Quincy outfit as he studied his opponent. He wasn't a big man, but his stance was imposing and there was a massive amount of reiatsu lurking deep inside of him. His shoulder length dark brown hair also ruffled in the breeze as his green eyes stared down the Quincy. Ishida didn't let it show, but he was slightly surprised at the amount of potential energy that he could sense coming off of this guy. If he didn't know any better, he would have suspected his to be at or near captain level.

"Your move, Quincy," the Shinigami said as he brought up his Katana.

A short time before, Ishida had sensed a new power had entered the real world and had decided to go and check it out. He had been hopping from roof top to roof top, trying to pin point the new energy source without much luck, when suddenly a Shinigami descended on him. He had managed to avoid the Shinigami's first strike and now he was trying to figure out what was going on. As he looked at the Shinigami across the roof from him, he could see that this guy was here to kill him. For whatever reason, he was going to have to fight this guy or die.

Ishida held his hand out to the side and allowed his web-like bow to form from the spirit particles around them. He always hated facing this level of opponent in the real world because there was so much less spirit particles to draw from. In places like Soul society and Hueco Mundo there was an endless supply.

The Shinigami grinned at the sight of the bow. "So, you're going to fight me then? I thought you might actually have the brains to try and run away. Apparently you're not as intelligent as I have heard."

"I see no need to run from you," Ishida said calmly as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, even though they really hadn't moved. "I am curious though, why do you wish to fight me?"

The Shinigami's grin grew as he said, "Because you are powerful and I want that power…"

Ishida narrowed his eyes, wondering what that was supposed to mean.

"Devour, Akiyo," the man spoke as he reach out with his left hand and touch the blade of his Zanpakuto.

The blade glowed a brilliant white and transformed. It grew in both width and length and looked to be a clear crystal but Ishida didn't think for a second that it was as fragile as it appeared. From the hilt a long chain appeared with a large, metal ball attached to the end. Ishida could feel a massive amount of power radiating from that ball. "May I at least know your name?" Ishida asked.

"Fourth seat of 5th squad, Makoto Tadaaki. And your name?"

"I was under the impression that you already knew who I was," Ishida said calmly.

"I know that you are a Quincy, that much is obvious." He said glancing at the bow. "I also know that you are a friend of the substitute Shinigami, Kurosaki Ichigo… But I never did hear you name."

"Ishida Uyru, Quincy," Ishida responded as he pushed his glasses up reflexively.

The two stood, facing each other, each waiting to see who would make the first move.

Suddenly, simultaneously, they both leapt into action. Ishida ran to the left, bringing up his bow and firing off a volley of about twenty arrows. Makoto countered to the right, swinging his Zanpakuto and deflected all the arrows before suddenly vanishing from sight to reappear at Ishida's left shoulder. As he brought his sword back for a swing, Ishida used his Hirenkyaku to make it to the other side of the Shinigami, reappearing just behind his right shoulder as the swing carried through.

Ishida shot off another volley at close range, but the Shinigami had already changed locations and swung the ball at Ishida as he did so. Ishida dodged the attack and waited for Makoto to reappear. Ishida sensed, more than saw, Makoto now directly behind him. He ducked as a swing of the sword came across, aiming for where his neck had been. Ishida moved to turn, but as he did so, the ball on the chain whipped out and wrapped around Ishida's leg, entangling them and sending him falling from his slightly airborne position into the roof a few meters below.

The Quincy was quick to get back to his feet, but not quick enough to avoid the punch to his chest that sent him flying back. Ishida was forced to use his hand on the top of the roof to stop his momentum before he was sent off the edge.

As he stood upright again, he found the Zanpakuto swinging down for his left shoulder. He managed to dodge enough so that when it contacted, it wasn't very deep. But something still felt very wrong when the sword bit into his flesh.

There was a moment where it felt as if the sword had gone much deeper than it really had and as it pulled back, it had the strange sensation as if it had both stuck into him and pulled smoothly free at the same time. Ishida felt himself being dragged forward even as he knew that the sword had released from his body. A moment later, he found himself on his hands and knees on the rooftop, feeling extremely disoriented and gasping for breath.

As he panted, he looked down and saw an iron plate attached to his chest with a chain trailing from it. His eyes doubled in size as he realized what that sight meant and he looked back behind him in time to see his own body begin to fall backward just like a marionette puppet that just had its strings cut. The chain that Ishida had seen from his chest ran up to an identical plate on the chest of his body. Somehow, that Zanpakuto had just dragged Ishida's soul out of his body.

XXX

"Why do I have to come to this stupid meeting?" Kon complained in Ichigo's body as Ichigo, in Shinigami form, led them into Urahara's shop.

"Because I want to keep an eye on you. I might have let you use my body while I'm out, but you have a tendency to get into trouble with it."

"Oh, come on, Ichigo! I'm bored. Do you know how dull it is being stuffed in your closet all day as a plushy! I just want to cut loose from time to time."

"Fine, I get that, but can't you be a little more reserved while cutting loose? It is my body that you are using." Ichigo led them through the shop and into the back room where Rukia, Chad, Urahara and Matsumoto were already gathered around the table.

"Ah, welcome Ichigo," Urahara called and gestured for Ichigo to take a seat. Kon didn't feel that he was really a part of this meeting so he slunk off and sat down in the corner and pouted.

Ichigo took his place and glanced around the table again. "Hey, where's Ishida?" he asked.

"I couldn't get a hold of him," Urahara said.

"We'll just have to start without him," Matsumoto said. "I've come with some important information from soul society.

"Yeah? What they mess up now?" Kon grumbled from the corner.

Ichigo sent him a glare but Matsumoto waved her hand and said, "Actually, Kon isn't that far off. We believe that a Shinigami of the fifth squad has gone rouge and may have fled to the real world."

"Rouge?" Inoue asked. "What do you mean?"

Matsumoto sighed and said, "We think that he attacked several other members of his squad before opening the gate and fleeing to Karakura town. We have no idea what set him off or what his motives are, if he has any."

"So what? You want me to track him down for you?" Ichigo asked.

Matsumoto shrugged, "That's actually what I was sent to do. I was also asked to recruit Rukia's help as well. As for the rest of you, I just thought that I should warn you about him?"

"Why, Matsumoto-san?" Inoue asked.

"Because of his Zanpakuto's…unique… abilities."

"What kind of a threat would this sword's ability pose to our little group here that would constitute a special warning?" Urahara asked from behind his fan.

"Makoto Tadaaki's Zanpakuto is quite unique. It effects different entities in different ways when attacked."

"For example?" Urahara pressed.

"For instance, if it were to cut a Hollow in its Shikai form, all of the energy in the hollow that makes it a hollow would be sucked and consumed by the sword itself. When that happens, the Hollow is returned to its original human form and a soul burial can be performed."

"I can see where that would be a useful weapon for a Shinigami to have," Inoue said.

Matsumoto nodded but Urahara knew that wasn't all, "And if it were to cut a Shinigami…?"

"Most, or sometimes all, of there reiatsu is absorbed by the sword, giving their power to its wielder."

There was a slight gasp from Inoue as the others remained in slightly stunned silence for a moment. As that sunk in to them, Matsumoto pressed on. "That's not all. If the sword were used on a human it has the ability to draw their spirit from their body. If their spirit chain is then severed, the sword can absorb their soul as well."

"I see," Urahara said after another pause of silence.

"So this guy could be after humans and Shinigami?" Ichigo burst out. "If they are able to give him more power, he may have gotten addicted to it and is searching for more!"

Matsumoto nodded her head again, "That is what Soul society fears as well."

"If that is the case, than those humans that have higher spiritual energy will be more likely targets," Urahara said.

All of them looked around the table before Ichigo suddenly jumped up and called out, "Ishida!"

Before anyone else could do anything, Ichigo was out the door and running towards Ishida's place. But even as he started that way, the pressure of Ishida's reiatsu suddenly struck him. It came from the general direction Ichigo was headed, but not quite at the young man's home. It seemed that Ishida might have already encountered their rouge Shinigami.

Suddenly Ichigo noticed that Kon was running beside him. "Go home, Kon," Ichigo told him. "You'll just get in the way."

"Eh? I am a mod soul after all. I was created to fight."

"Yes, fight against Hollows, not against Shinigami. I've had quite a lot of experience in that area."

"And did you notice that Matsumoto-san didn't mention what would happen if that sword of his cut a mod soul? I might be the only one not effected by that Zanpakuto of his."

Ichigo frowned at Kon, not wanting the mod soul to come along, but seeing that Kon might actually have a point. "Alright, but make sure you keep out of the way. I don't need you getting my body damaged!"

Rukia and Matsumoto stayed back just a moment to make sure that Inoue and Chad were going to be all right. "Urahara-san," Rukia said. "Please watch over these two…" she said nodding to Inoue and Chad.

"We want to help!" Inoue said, jumping up.

"Yes," Chad said simply also standing and flexing his right arm to show that he was ready for action.

"It's too dangerous for humans to confront this Shinigami," Matsumoto said. "If he is looking for more power, quickly and easily, he will be targeting the humans with the more spirit pressure. You two would appear too good to be true."

"Vice-captain Matsumoto is correct," Urahara said as he lowed his fan and tucked it into his sleeve. It would be best if you stayed behind this time." He turned to the two Shinigami women and said, "We'll be down in the practice grounds when you are finished."

With that, he escorted the reluctant Chad and Inoue down the hatch into his basement practice grounds and Rukia and Matsumoto took off in pursuit of Ichigo.

XXX

Ishida stared for a moment in stunned silence as he watched his body fall as if in slow motion. _Impossible_, he thought to himself. _How could such a small cut have killed me?_

He heard a laugh from the Shinigami and looked back just in time to see the Zanpakuto coming toward him again. He rolled out of the way, narrowly missing its cutting edge. As he stood shakily again, he realized that the last swing hadn't been directed at him, so much, as it had been for his soul chain.

His eyes followed the chain again and confirmed that it was, in fact, still attached to his body. So he hadn't been killed yet.

"No, Quincy, you're not dead… not yet anyway," Makoto said with a grin as he suddenly appeared behind Ishida again, aiming another strike for the soul chain.

Ishida quickly used his Hirenkyaku to avoid the attack, but he didn't want to get too far for fear that that would give Makoto an even larger target if he was in fact aiming for his soul chain. The further from his body that he got, the longer the chain and the more places the Shinigami had to attack.

He appeared just on the other side of his body and reached out with his hand to form his bow, but he realized that he was no longer wearing his Quincy charm. Apparently it was a purely material item and didn't transfer with his spirit form. That meant that he was powerless like this.

Makoto laughed at him again as he lunged after the soul chain. "Can't shoot your arrows like that, can you?" he said.

Ishida grabbed the chain and swung it out of the reach of the sword and then swung it back so that it entangled the Shinigami's legs. Makoto hadn't expected such an attack and so he was tripped and sent flying off the side of the roof.

Ishida took that moment to jump back inside his body. He had seen Ichigo do it many times and it looked quite easy. But when he felt himself realigning with his body he felt a sharp pain as if all of his joints had suddenly locked.

He felt incredibly cold and he was gasping for breath as if he hadn't breathed in the last few minutes. Apparently his body could not last indefinably without his soul like Ichigo's could. His body had already begun to shut down in just those few short minutes that he had been absent from it.

By the time he was able to move, Makoto had appeared on top of the roof again and was aiming another strike at Ishida. The Quincy rolled, just barely missing the slash. But he was too weak from having been essentially dead for a few minutes to avoid the next strike.

Makoto moved directly from his last swing to just behind Ishida. The Quincy didn't even know that the Shinigami was there until the tip of the sword raked across his back, drawing his soul out of the body once again.

XXX

Ichigo stopped dead in his tracks as Ishida's reiatsu suddenly vanished from his senses. "Ishida…" he gasped, fearing the worse.

"Ichigo!" Kon called back from where he had run ahead, not realizing that his friend had stopped. "What are you doing?"

"He's gone…" Ichigo muttered.

"All the more reason to hurry. Matsumoto-san said that Makoto could only absorb the soul after the soul chain was severed. If you can't sense Ishida anymore, that means that he has been pulled out of his body, but not that Makoto has severed the chain yet!"

Ichigo was stunned at Kon's insight and nodded as he suddenly put on a new burst of speed, racing towards where he had last felt Ishida. Kon continued on beside him, occasionally casting side-glances at him, wondering if they were going to be able to make it in time.

_I've never really liked that stuck up Quincy,_ Kon thought to himself. _But Ichigo would feel terrible if anything happened to him and I owe it to Ichigo to help_.

Ichigo was suddenly relieved when he was able to sense Ishida again. Maybe the Quincy had just done something to mask his reiatsu for a few minutes. They were almost there… just another corner to round.

Just as they rounded that corner, Ishida's reiatsu vanished again. Ichigo looked up on top of the building where he had just sensed his friend's presences and saw what was happening. Ishida's body was lying limply on his back, staring blankly up at the sky. Behind the body, attached by a chain in the chest, was an exact copy of Ishida, only ever so slightly translucent.

The spirit Ishida was also lying on his back with a Shinigami hovering over him, sword poised to slash the chain that connected spirit to body. "No!" Ichigo yelled as he leapt up into the air to stop the Shinigami.

But he was a fraction too slow. Just before his own sword found the Shinigami's back, Ichigo heard the sound of ringing metal against metal. He saw Ishida's actual body spasm and then still again just as his sword raked across the back of the Shinigami.

He cried out in surprised pain and dashed a short distance away to turn and face his new attacker. Ichigo didn't pay him any attention but looked down at the spirit form of Ishida at his feet.

The Quincy was staring with enormous shock and surprise at a place on his soul chain several links from the place it connected to his chest. Where the chain should have continued on to connect him to his body, there was a clean slice through the middle of one link, severing his connection.

Slowly he turned his face up to look at Ichigo. Ichigo's jaw dropped, realizing what that meant. Ishida couldn't return to his body. For all intense and purposes, Ishida was dead.

The Shinigami was laughing again. "You're too late, Kurosaki Ichigo!"

Ichigo snapped his head up and looked at the man in shock. How did he know his name?

"I heard about you and your group of friends… it almost sounded too good to be true, humans with such incredible powers, just waiting for me to snatch them up!"

Ichigo gripped his sword in anger and before he even knew what he was doing called out, "Bankai!"

There was an explosion of power and suddenly Ichigo was standing there with his black sword and in his tattered outfit that went along with his Bankai form. He stared down the Shinigami in front of him with murderous rage in his eyes. It was all he could do to not also call out his hollow form. But right now he wanted to kill this man as himself, not as a mindless hollow.

"It doesn't matter what you do, Kurosaki," Makoto laughed. "As I said, you're too late." With that, he pointed his sword at Ishida's spirit that was still sitting on the roof top just a few feet in front of Ichigo, stunned expression still painted on his face.

"Consume," Makoto whispered and a light shot out from the tip of his sword and struck Ishida's spirit in the back, attaching to him, and yanking him off of the roof.

"Ishida!" Ichigo called out as he reached for the spirit of his friend. Ishida reached towards Ichigo in return, hands just missing each other as he was wrenched out of range. Ichigo watched in horror as the light grew and engulfed Ishida. It pulled him back and into the tip of the sword. The last thing that Ichigo saw of his friend was his pleading eyes and outstretched hand towards him.

Ichigo stood there, hand still frozen out in front of him, staring blankly at the tip of the crystal sword that had just consumed his friend's spirit.

"Mmm," Makoto said quietly as his eyes closed in pleasure. "The powers of a Quincy are just as intoxicating as I had thought."

This snapped Ichigo out of his shock and reminded him that there was someone that needed to pay before he could grieve the loss of his friend. "You are dead," Ichigo growled as he planted one foot forward and brought his sword up, ready to launch into an attach.

A slow grin spread across the Shinigami's face, "Perhaps. I do have every intention of fighting you, Kurosaki Ichigo… but not just yet." With that he swung out the ball at the end of his sword that now had a faint white glow around it and smashed it into the roof just in front of Ichigo, sending up a shower of debris.

"Getsuga Tensho!" Ichigo called out, sending a black and red blast of energy through the rain of smashed shingles and dust. The wave burst through the debris, clearing it out of the way and barreled down the rest of the length of the roof. But much to Ichigo's surprise, there was nothing there to stop it. Makoto Tadaaki had vanished completely.

XXX

Kon also saw what was happening as soon as they rounded the corner. He also knew that there was no way for either of them to reach the Shinigami in time before he could sever Ishida's soul chain. He watched as Ichigo futilely launched himself up after Makoto, trying to prevent the now inevitable.

The mod soul witnessed as the chain was cut and Ishida's body jerked with the release of its soul. That was it, Kon thought to himself. There was no going back now.

Kon felt a wave of despair from Ichigo a split second before that despair turned into rage. Kon knew what Ichigo was about to say just before he did. "Bankai!" the mod soul heard his friend call out and the blast of power obscured everything from his eyes for a moment.

When it cleared, Kon saw that Ishida's spirit was still up there. Slowly, Kon started to wonder if there wasn't someway to repair the chain, even though it had been cut. The problem was, after a soul chain was severed, the body would die even faster than if it was still connected. There were only moments left if they were going to be able to reattach the chain and that was something that they would probably need Urahara to do.

Without another thought, Kon launched himself up to the top of the roof and grabbed Ishida's body and pulled it further away from Ichigo. Kon knew that in a second, the last place that anyone would want to be was close to Ichigo.

He didn't hardly even notice as Ishida's spirit was grabbed and consumed by the Shinigami's sword as he was too busy with his own scheme. Kon opened Ishida's lips and positioned his own open mouth just above him. Then, with his right hand, he slapped the back of his head with force, dislodging the green spirit pill that was him from Ichigo's throat.

The pill fell from Ichigo's open mouth and directly into Ishida's. Kon gave a gasp as he suddenly found himself in Ishida's body rather than Ichigo's. He was ever so slightly relieved that Ichigo's body had managed to fall across him rather than directly down on his still open mouth.

Kon could feel the damage that had been done to Ishida's body, both from the wounds that he had received and the period that it had spent without air or circulating blood. But now that he was in there, the body had resumed its normal functions. He could act as life support for Ishida until they could get it figured out.

He was feeling pretty smug with himself until he heard Ichigo's next words. "Getsuga Tensho!"

The backwash of energy from that move shoved Kon in Ishida's body and Ichigo's now inert body off the end of the roof and crashing to the ground. "Ouch!" Kon cried as he fell into a dense bush that had been just below him. "Ow, ow, ow, ow," he muttered as he struggled to extract himself from the shrubbery.

Above him, Ichigo stood stock still, staring off at the place that he had last seen the rouge Shinigami. _Ishida is dead_, was the only thought that he could force through his brain, and still he couldn't wrap his mind around it. _Ishida… Ishida… I… failed…_

"Ichigo!" Rukia's voice rang out suddenly as she and Matsumoto appeared on the roof beside him. "Ichigo, what happened?" she demanded.

Ichigo just continued to stare strait ahead, not able to bring himself out of his trance.

"Ichigo, where's Ishida?" Rukia demanded as he grabbed Ichigo and shook him.

Rukia gasped as Ichigo slowly turned and faced her. She saw from the dead look in Ichigo's eyes what had happened.

"No…" she breathed.

"Oi!" a voice came from the end of the roof. "What's the big idea throwing that kind of power around with me so close!"

The three of them turned and saw Ishida climbing back on top of the roof, bits of shrubbery stuck in his hair and uniform.

"I…Ishida!" Ichigo cried out, clearly completely shocked.

Ishida picked a few bits of bush from his hair and said, "Nah, it's Kon. I put myself in his body for now."

"Kon!" Rukia exclaimed.

Suddenly Ichigo was in front of Kon, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him up slightly, putting him nose to nose with him. "What do you think you're doing?" Ichigo growled at the mod soul. "You saw a dead body and you thought this was your chance to get one for yourself?"

"What?" Kon said, completely shaken by the sudden attack from Ichigo. "N…no. I saw that his chain was cut so I thought that I could keep the body alive until we could figure out a way to repair it…" he explained in a rush.

Ichigo's face suddenly went from one of loathing and anger to confusion. He slowly lowered Kon back to stand on the roof and backed off a few steps. "Didn't you see?" he asked Kon. "Didn't you see that sword devoured Ishida?"

"Ichigo…" Rukia said quietly as she came up behind him and rested her hand on his arm. She could hear the pain and sorrow that hovered behind Ichigo's words. She felt it too.

Kon stared at him blankly for a moment. "No… no I didn't. I just thought that if… if we could… if we could just…" but the pain in Ichigo's eyes was too much for Kon to continue.

"It was a good thought, Kon. Thank you," Rukia said quietly to him and looked up at Ichigo.

Ichigo was still staring at Kon, though Rukia realized that it wasn't Kon whom he was seeing, it was Ishida. "I failed him," Ichigo said softly. "I lost hope when I saw the chain had been cut and I failed him."

Kon's eyes got wider as he realized that Ichigo had thought all was lost when he saw the severed chain.

"You… you didn't give up on him, Kon…" Ichigo said. "I did…"

"Ichigo…" Rukia said again and reached up to turn his face towards her. "You didn't know… You did what you could…"

"Did I?" he asked her.

As they looked at each other, not sure what the answer to that question was, Matsumoto walked over to Kon and began to look him over. He looked back at her, wondering what she was up to, and trying very hard not to break the somber moment by reaching out for her incredibly ample bosom.

"Kon," she said to him.

"Hmm?"

"You're keeping Ishida's body alive?"

He nodded to her.

"And you can do so as long as you stay in it, right?"

"Ah, yes…" he was unsure as to what she was getting at.

"Ichigo!" she suddenly said as she spun around to face the other two Shinigami.

Both he and Rukia looked at her. "We might be able to save Ishida!" she said excitedly.

Ichigo's brow furrowed, wondering how she could say that. "But the sword…" he said.

"The sword absorbs the human's spirit. That means he may still be inside of it. And if we can get it out…"

"…And Kon keeps Ishida's body alive until then…" Rukia added as she saw where Matsumoto was going.

"…We might be able to save him…" Ichigo finished. He suddenly looked up at Kon and said, "It looks like you have saved the day, Kon!"

Kon grinned with Ishida's lips, which looked completely wrong. But that grin was short lived as he suddenly realized something, "Wait, that means I'm stuck in this body for a while."

"Yup!" Ichigo said as he walked over to him and threw his arm around his shoulders. "Looks like you finally get your wish and have a body to use for a while!"

"But…" Kon said, looking down at Ishida's body. "But…" he looked up at Ichigo. "I don't want _this_ body!"

Ichigo laughed at him. "Hey, what would you rather have, Ishida's body, or the plushy?"

Kon was strongly considering the plushy, but he didn't say as much as Ichigo and the girls directed him to grab Ichigo's body and they all returned to Urahara's shop. Kon was not feeling quite so proud of himself anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

When they returned to the shop to meet the others downstairs in the training grounds, they left Ichigo's body upstairs and descended. They saw the other three mod souls in their human forms standing guard over Chad and Inoue. As they descended the stairs, Inoue looked up and exclaimed, "Ishida-kun!" She jumped up and ran up the stairs to meet them. Before anyone could stop her, Inoue had thrown her arms around whom she thought was Ishida and hugged him.

Kon turned red at first and then realized that Inoue's breasts were pressed up against him and he began to smile and lean into her embrace. _Maybe being in this body might not be so bad after all_, he thought. But all too soon, Ichigo thumped him on the head and dragged him out of Inoue's grasp.

"It's not Ishida," Ichigo said. "It's Kon."

Inoue took a step back and looked up at Kon in Ishida's body. She looked slightly stunned at first and then a look of fear crossed her face. "Where's Ishida-kun?" she demanded.

Ichigo kept his face blank as he told her, "It's a long story. But we're going to get him back."

Inoue felt her eyes beginning to fill with tears but she quickly shook them away. If Ichigo said they were going to get Ishida back, then they would. She followed them down the stairs the rest of the way to meet up with the other mod souls, Chad, and Urahara.

"My, my," Urahara said as he looked up at Kon. "Something has certainly been going on while you've been away. That's not your normal form, Kon…"

Chad looked up at whom he thought was Ishida and asked, "Kon?"

"We have a few things to discuss," Ichigo said as he sat down across from Urahara. "And we're probably going to need your help with this one, Urahara-san."

The ex-Shinigami nodded his head and brought out his fan before saying, "Let's hear it then…"

"Poor Ishida-kun," Inoue said as she brought her hand up to her lips. She had just sat and listened to everything that Ichigo had to tell them and what their plan was.

"Hmm," Urahara said from behind his fan. "A rather difficult, not to mention dangerous operation…" he told them. "Even if you do somehow manage to retrieve Ishida-san's soul from the Zanpakuto, there is no guarantee that it has not been affected in someway from that transfer. I've never heard of retrieving a soul after it had been consumed."

"But it is a possibility?" Rukia asked him eagerly.

He thought a moment before lowering the fan and nodding, "Yes, I suppose that it is a possibility."

"Can you help us figure out a way to do it?" Ichigo asked excitedly.

Urahara sighed, "I have to know more about how the Zanpakuto's power works. The descriptions that you gave me, Ichigo, are good, but they are not enough to go by. I need to know what was happening to the spirit particles when the transfer occurred."

They all sat in silence a moment until Urahara's eyes suddenly settled on Kon. "Luckily…" Urahara said as he brought his fan up again. "There was another observer to the occurrence that hasn't given his story yet."

Everyone looked at Kon. "What?" he said, raising his hands. "Me? I didn't see anything. I was too busy figuring out how to keep Ishida's body alive!"

"You may not have seen anything, but you must have sensed something. You were quite close to everything," Urahara said as his eyes narrowed on Kon.

Kon sensed that he was not going to like where this was going. "I don't remember anything," he told them. "I was focused on my own thing. I wasn't paying attention…"

"Oh, that doesn't matter," Urahara said with a wave of his fan before he snapped it shut and put it back up his sleeve. "You're a mod soul, there are ways for me to find out everything that you sense, even if you didn't sense it consciously." He stood up and walked over to Kon, reaching down and picking him up by the arm.

"Hey, what do you mean?" Kon cried, really not liking where this was going.

"Hmm," Urahara said as he thought a moment. "There is the matter of you keeping Ishida's body alive, though. I can't very well do experiments on you while you're still inside him."

Kon was about to breath a sigh of relief until Urahara suddenly called out, "Nova!"

"Yes," the masked mod soul said as he stood up and came over to Urahara and Kon.

"Sorry about this, but I'm going to have to ask you to take care of Ishida's body for Kon while I interrogate him."

Nova bowed slightly and said, "aye."

"Wait!" Kon exclaimed as Urahara first tapped Nova with the end of his cane, popping the spirit pill out of the Gigai. Urahara reached out and snatched it from the air as Nova's body collapsed to the ground.

"Your turn," he said jovially as he turned to Kon.

"Wait! Wait, I don't want…"

Pop

Urahara snatched Kon's candy from the air and then caught Ishida's body before it collapsed to the ground. Quickly he popped Nova into Ishida's mouth. He held on to the body until Nova open his eyes and Urahara saw that he now had control.

"All right then, Nova?"

Nova nodded once and stood up on his own.

Urahara tossed Kon up in the air and caught him again and turned to the others and said, "It will take me some time to analyze everything that Kon experienced. I suggest that all of you stay here at the shop until we get this all sorted. From the sounds of it, this Makoto Tadaaki is targeting all of you. Let's try and keep this down to a one soul rescue, please."

With that he turned and headed up the stairs, Kon's spirit pill in hand.

XXX

Ishida felt himself falling. He was falling through a tunnel of pure white with nothing to indicate how fast he was falling or even what direction he was facing. The last thing that he had seen before this constant whiteness had been Kurosaki Ichigo's face. The substitute Shinigami had been trying to reach him, to keep him from falling into whatever it was that he was now falling. But it didn't work. Ichigo had missed his out stretched hand and now Ishida was here, wherever here was.

He couldn't even figure out how it was that he had started falling. The last thing he knew he had been sitting on the rooftop. He had just realized that his soul chain really had been severed and had looked up to see a stunned Ichigo standing over him. Ishida was also stunned, but more in the fact that Ichigo hadn't been there in time.

For as much as Ishida had always believed that he could take care of himself and that he didn't need any help from that substitute Shinigami like Inoue and Chad seemed to… deep down he always knew that Ichigo would be there to catch him if he ever needed it. But he wasn't.

Ichigo had been too late to save him, and now he was dead and stuck falling for eternity for all he knew in this eternal whiteness. Why he had even tried to reach out to Ichigo when he had started to fall he wasn't sure. Now that he was dead, it would have been Ichigo's task to send him on to soul society to be lost in the shuffle of souls on the other side. He wasn't sure if that would have been any better than this place.

Suddenly he felt something grab him and he knew that anywhere would be better than here. An enormous power wrapped itself around him, squeezing him, nearly crushing him. It felt almost as if he was being wrung out and the very essence of himself was leaking away. That, more than the pressure, was what caused him to scream in agony.

For a brief flash, he wondered if somehow he had been cast into hell. Maybe that's what he got for being a Quincy. After all, the Quincy had rejected the Shinigami, so maybe the Shinigami had rejected him.

But just as suddenly as he was grabbed, he was released and he was falling again. He felt himself taking deep breaths as his limbs shuddered from the pain that had just coursed through him.

_It's strange to think that I am dead,_ he thought. _I still feel pain, I still feel like I'm breathing. I can hear my heart beat and blood rush through my veins… yet I'm dead._ Suddenly he felt himself impact with something as his fall was stopped. The impact hadn't really hurt all that much, it was more as if he had just quite falling.

He laid there a moment, taking stock of himself. He could still feel the sting of the cuts that he had received from the sword on his left shoulder and across his back, but they weren't anything serious. He had to almost laugh at himself as he sat up for thinking that. _I'm already dead… what does it matter if those cuts were serious or not?_

Slowly he stood up and looked around. As he did, the chain in his chest clinked, reminding him that he really was in spirit form now. He glanced down at the chain and frowned. Was there one less link then there had been when it was first cut? If so, what did that mean?

He shook his head and looked up again. There wasn't much to see. Everything was still all white. Even when he looked down, he could hardly tell that he was actually standing on anything since it all just blended together. One great big splash of white…

Ishida nudged his glasses up his nose as he tried squinting into the brightness. He stopped and looked at his hand when he realized what he was doing. _I'm dead and I still have glasses?_ He reached up and plucked the glasses from his face and then raised his other hand in front of him. As he looked at his hand and saw that it was slightly blurry, he sighed. "Apparently I still need glasses as a spirit," he said out loud as he placed them back on his face again, making sure that they were perfectly square.

"Everything you were in life you are here," a voice said from behind him.

Ishida turned around and searched for the speaker of the voice. "Who are you?" he said when he didn't see anyone, no matter which way he looked. "Where are you?"

"I'm right in front of you," the voice said again, this time sounding even closer. "Don't worry, you'll eventually adjust to the white. It has a tendency to blind when you first arrive."

Ishida squinted his eyes again and realized that he was beginning to make out a form in front of him. The voice had sounded as if it was an older man, but he couldn't make out any distinguishing features… just a vague outline.

"Good, it looks as if you are adjusting," the speaker said.

"Who are you?" Ishida asked again.

He heard a footstep come towards him and saw that the outline came a bit closer. "You'll find out soon enough, let me show you around first." Ishida felt a hand reach out and touch his arm. He snatched his arm back from the touch. It had felt like ice.

"Suit yourself," the voice said and Ishida sensed that the speaker had shrugged as it spoke. "I suppose it would be a little pointless right now as you are still adjusting."

"What is this place?"

"My dear Quincy… this is your new home…"

XXX

The gang didn't see Urahara again until the following night. They had spent their time in the practice grounds, all sense of time lost on them. Ichigo had been pacing for most of the time. He had refused any of the meals that Tessai had brought down to them and continued to brood on his own.

"Ichigo…" Rukia said softly to him at one point, stopping him in his pacing. He looked at her and saw that he wanted to say something to him to make him feel better. But right now he didn't need to feel better.

"Rukia… don't worry about it. We're going to get him back," he told her.

She smiled slightly at him and said, "I know we are. If you say so, then it's true. I just thought that…"

Ichigo shook his head, "No, I don't want to talk right now." He glanced across the room and looked at Nova who was sitting perfectly still in Ishida's body. "All I want to do is bring him back. Anything else at the moment is meaningless."

Rukia sighed and sat down on a rock near Ichigo. "It wasn't your fault, Ichigo," she said to him.

He turned from her so that she wouldn't see his face. She saw how tense and rigid he had suddenly become and how his fists clenched. "I know…" he said softly. "I know that it's not my fault that Ishida was attacked… I know that it's not my fault that this man chose to go after my friends…" he was silent a moment before he spun around and faced her.

His eyes were flashing in rage and it was all he could do to keep himself from shouting at her, "But it is my fault that I didn't save him! I left him there! He was right in front of me and all I did was fly into a rage! It was Kon of all people that had actually been thinking about Ishida! It was Kon that had not given up hope and continued to fight for him…"

"Ichigo…" Rukia muttered as she reached out to him.

"No!" He snapped at her and took a step back from the hand she held out. "You don't get it Rukia… I gave up on him. I saw that I had been too late and I simply gave up!"

Rukia stared at Ichigo as she finally realized the root of his sorrow. He had always held out hope, no matter how grim or impossible the situation had seemed, but in that moment that he had seen the severed chain, he had truly given over to despair. For the first time, he had failed to protect someone that he had sworn to protect. He had broken his oath to himself, and now he feared that he could no longer trust his own resolve.

"Kurosaki-kun," Inoue's voice said quietly from behind him. "Even if you did give up then… You're not going to now."

Slowly Ichigo turned around and faced her. "When Rukia-san had been taken back to soul society, you hadn't been able to stop it," she went on. "But still you went after her. You risked your own life to follow after her… to save her. She had been gone, but you didn't give up."

Ichigo shook his head slowly. "But I never did give up on her," he said sadly. "I was too weak to stop them from taking her, but I didn't for one second think that I couldn't save her if I got stronger. When I saw that I had been too late for Ishida, I thought that I could no longer save him. I had failed in that moment. And thinking that I had failed, was the ultimate failure."

Rukia stood up and came over to stand beside Ichigo. "That's why you have to press on now… to prove that a moment of despair is not going to weaken your resolve. Everyone, even you, experiences a moment of despair, but it is how we proceed after that that defines who we are."

Ichigo looked down at her and saw the sincerity in her eyes. She didn't blame him for having lost hope. He looked up at the others that were in the practice grounds and realized that none of them had lost their faith in him because of this. True, they all knew that he had lost faith in himself for a moment, but they all expected him to be able to save Ishida, even now.

Ichigo nodded once, "You're right," he said as he allowed his gaze to fall on the form of Ishida. "The ultimate failure would be to loose faith in myself now. I lost hope once, but I won't again… not ever again."

Rukia recognized that set to his face and glint in his eyes. She smiled up at him as she saw that he had finally come to terms with his moment of weakness and he would now be able to continue on.

XXX

"How… How do you know who I am?" Ishida asked, taking another step back from the vague figure that he was talking to.

"I am the one that brought you here," the voice said. "I know everyone that comes here."

"Who are you?" Ishida demanded again.

"My name is Akiyo, and this, is my world."

Ishida froze as he tried to remember where he had heard the name before.

_"Devour, Akiyo."_

"The Zanpakuto," Ishida whispered as he realized what was going on. "I'm inside Makoto's Zanpakuto."

The voice gave a chuckle and said, "My, you are a clever one. I think you will prove to be an interesting edition to our home." With that, Ishida realized that a hand was pressed up against his eyes. He pulled back and when he did, he could see movement around him.

Everything was still mostly white, but now he could see the figures that that blended into the background of whiteness. His jaw dropped as he realized that the vast majority of figures that he saw were hollows. There were hollows of every shape and size, but instead of the normally black bodies that they would have, they were bleached out white. Most of them were completely white, but a few of them seemed to be in a transition of black to white.

As he continued to look around, Ishida saw that, scattered among the hollows were other human souls. They too appeared to be going through some kind of bleaching process. Their hair, eyes, skin, and clothes were all in various states of fading. Even the soul chains that dangled from their chests were beginning to fade from gray to white.

And then, he saw something completely unexpected… He was quite certain that a few of the figures that he saw had once been Shinigami.

The voice that had been talking to him chuckled again, "Not quite still Shinigami now," it said. "More like echoes of what they were."

Ishida turned and looked at his host. It was in fact an older man, though actual age would be quite difficult to tell since his hair was just as white as everyone else around there. His eyes were also completely white. There was no evidence of either iris of pupil in his eyes. Ishida half wondered if this man could even see. His skin was also pure white and he was wearing a long white cloak over top of a white shirt and white pants. It was no wonder Ishida had been unable to make him out from the surroundings.

"What have you done to me?" he asked Akiyo.

"I've merely opened your eyes. I have to admit, you have adjusted to this place much faster than I expected."

"Why am I here?"

Akiyo cocked his head slightly to the side and said, "Because you are powerful. My master will use your power to become stronger."

Now Ishida understood what Makoto had said to him.

"_I am curious though, why do you wish to fight me?"_

_The Shinigami's grin grew as he said, "Because you are powerful and I want that power…"_

"So I'm to become some sort of battery?" Ishida cried as he took another step away from Akiyo. "You sucked my soul out of my body so that Makoto could steal my energy? So what am I supposed to do now? Just sit around and wait for my very essence to be stolen from me?"

The smile on Akyio's face broadened as he nodded and yes, "Yes, that is exactly it."


	3. Chapter 3

When Urahara appeared to the rest of them again, he looked quite tired, but had a smile on his face. He went over to Nova who was still inside of Ishida and bowed to him saying, "Thank you Nova, but Kon can take over for you again now."

"Aye," Nova replied as he sat there and allowed Urahara to tap him with his cane. The ex-Shinigami snatched the spirit pill from the air and nearly simultaneously, popped another one in Ishida's mouth.

Immediately, Ishida's body jumped and scurried away from Urahara. "You stay away from me!" Kon yelled at the man. "You're crazy!"

Urahara smiled down at Kon and said, "Thank you Kon, your information has done a lot."

Kon looked up at Urahara wide eyed and then plopped down where he was, crossing his arms and setting his face in a pout. Apparently he wasn't ready to forgive Urahara for whatever he had to do to get the information, but he did seem to be a little mollified that the information was helpful.

Urahara then walked over to where Nova's Gigai was lying on the ground and popped his pill back in his mouth. He blinked once and then sat up, not saying anything. The shopkeeper turned then and addressed everyone else that was beginning to gather around him. "I think that I may have found the solution that we are looking for," he announced to them.

"Do you think Ishida is still all right then?" Rukia asked.

He looked at her and then signaled for them to all sit. They all sat in a circle and waited for Urahara to give them his report. "Do I think he is all right?" he repeated the question. "I do believe that his soul is probably still intact within the Zanpakuto, yes."

Everyone seemed excited about this, but Ichigo spoke up, "In tact, but not necessarily all right…"

Urahara nodded at him, "That is entirely impossible to tell. What I was able to determine is that Kon actually was able to sense distinct souls already within the sword. That means that they aren't immediately converted to pure energy as soon as they are taken. If that had been the case, then there would be nothing that we could do."

"But there is something we can do? Right?" Inoue asked.

Urahara nodded. "Yes, I do believe that it may be possible to destroy the Zanpakuto in such a way that it will release the souls that are trapped inside."

"How?" Ichigo asked.

Urahara paused before saying, "from the inside out."

There was a moment of silence before Rukia spoke up and said, "Someone is going to have to go inside the sword, you mean."

Urahara had barely managed to nod to her when Ichigo said, "It'll be me."

"No, it won't" Urahara said firmly. Everyone was a little taken aback at his announcement and stared at him. "You can't, Ichigo… nor you Rukia." He continued. "The sword doesn't take a Shinigami in the same way as it does a human. It can't steal a soul from a Shinigami because that's all that Shinigami is. It steals away a Shinigami's reiatsu. There is not much that your spirit power alone will be able to do from inside the sword. You cannot go in, Ichigo."

Ichigo stared at Urahara, trying to will the man to tell him that there was way. He knew that he was the one that needed to get Ishida… It was his failure that had gotten him trapped in there in the first place.

"But… Urahara-san…" he began.

"But I can go in," Chad said, speaking over Ichigo.

Urahara nodded slowly, "yes, it is true that you _could_ go in Chad, but I think that would be a little too risky. Same goes for you Inoue," he said as he saw her opening her mouth.

"But who else is there?" Ichigo demanded. If Urahara was going to rule out everyone, then there was no way that they were going to be able to save Ishida.

"Me, of course!" he said with a grin.

Everyone had a completely blank look on their face as they looked at him. "But…" Ichigo began.

"Aren't you a Shinigami?" Chad finished for the confused Ichigo.

Urahara chuckled and waved his fan in the air dismissively. "Ex-Shinigami."

"Urahara-san," Rukia spoke up. "Just because you were exiled, doesn't mean that your spirit…"

"Rukia," he interrupted. "What kind of former head of the technological bureau would I be if I wasn't able to alter my own spirit partials?"

They all just stared back at him. "You want proof?" he asked. He snatched up his cane and spun it around, facing the tip at his own chest. Before anyone could react, he tapped his chest. The cane fell out of his limp hand with a clatter as his body started to topple over. Chad, who had been sitting next to him, reached out and caught Urahara's body before it fell over.

As Chad leaned the body over to lie on the ground, they saw, sitting directly behind where his body had been, was a spirit form. He sat there, still holding his cane, but now it was aimed at a plate in his chest that had a chain attached to it. The chain ran back and attached to a plate on his body's chest. He was a human soul.

They all gasped as the spirit Urahara lowered his cane and then stood up. He looked at his slightly see through hands and then back up at them. "You see," he said. He swung his cane around as he continued. "It was a fairly difficult transition to make, but once I had the principles down, it went well."

"You still have your Zanpakuto!" Rukia exclaimed, looking at the cane he was swinging around. He stopped and glanced at it.

"Benihime? Yes, that took a little work. But, after all, Benihime is a part of my soul, so it was just a small stretch of spirit trickery to accomplish it." With that he walked over to his body and merged with it again.

He gasped and opened his eyes and then sat up as if nothing had happened. Leaning over, he picked up his fallen cane. Ichigo glared at him as he said, "If you can do that to yourself, you can change me too!"

Urahara looked up at him from just below the brim of his hat and then sat back up, laying his cane across his lap. "Eventually, yes I could." He admitted. "But time is of the essence right now and it was far quicker for me to adjust myself than to figure out your complicated spirit energy and do the same for you."

Ichigo was quiet for a moment with an unreadable look on his face. "What should we do?" Chad asked quietly from beside Urahara.

"I'm going to need you all to keep Makoto busy after I've managed to infiltrate his Zanpakuto. It will most likely take me a little while to figure out how to operate from inside and I don't want him to get away from you while we're still in there. There is a likelihood that, when I release the souls, the hollows will also be released."

They all exchanged glances before nodding. Ichigo still looked slightly stricken but didn't say anything.

"As for how to find Makoto, that shouldn't be too difficult…"

"We'll be bait," Chad said, including Inoue in his statement.

"Right. He said that he was after Ichigo's human friends so he'll be looking for you two."

"Wait," Ichigo said. "I thought that it was too dangerous for them to confront Makoto!"

"Confront, yes, be the ones working inside the Zanpakuto, definitely… but as bait they will have plenty of back up. I'm sure that you and Rukia, not to mention our mod soul friends can help to keep them safe in this matter."

"Are we to expect no help from Soul Society?" Rukia asked.

Urahara shrugged, "Vice-captain Matsumoto should have completed her report by now and has not yet returned. At this point I wouldn't count on help from their end, but you never know."

"Alright," Ichigo said as he stood up. "Let's do this. Let's get Ishida back."

XXX

Ishida was left by Akiyo to wander about the white world. He tried to approach several of the other human souls, but they seemed afraid of him. For that matter, they seemed afraid of everyone. None of them would gather together, each either wandering about aimlessly, or balled up on the ground, slowly rocking back and forth.

Ishida realized that to them, this must be hell. He didn't sense any particularly strong spirit energy from them, so they probably had been just typical humans before they had been taken and had no idea what had happened to them.

The hollows, however, did gather together. Ishida thought it rather odd that they weren't attacking any of the human souls, but he figured that there was probably something here that prevented that. If they were all to be used for their energy, Akiyo wouldn't want them eating each other.

Upon closer inspection, what he had thought were Shinigami were not quite that. As he approached one, he could see that there was no intelligence left in them. They drifted about, unseeing, unfeeling… Their black uniforms had been transformed to white and they had all the same features to them that Akiyo had sported.

"Hello?" he experimentally asked one of them. "Can you hear me?"

He received no reaction. As he set his senses to examine them, it was as he had thought, they were just pure reiatsu. The sword apparently had drained the Shinigami's reiatsu from them and stored it here.

"Echoes…" Ishida muttered, remembering what Akiyo had said to him.

Suddenly, as if his thoughts had summoned him, Akiyo was standing beside him again. "Finished your examination?" he asked.

"All this different power, how can you use it all?" Ishida asked.

Akiyo smiled and said, "That's my gift. I can take whatever spirit energy there is, whether it be Shinigami, hollow, or human, and feed it to my wielder."

"And the chain on the souls?" he asked. He glanced down at his own. "They are all at different lengths. I'm sure that I have already lost a link in mine… what does that mean?"

"Come now, Uyru, you're a bright boy. Surely you know what happens when a soul looses its soul chain."

Ishida's eyes widened as he realized what the sword was implying. "We become hollows…" he breathed.

Akiyo nodded. Human soul energy burns longer than hollow, but hollow energy has such a punch to it…" another grin filled his face

"…And when you burn out the hollows?"

"Would you like to see?" With that he flung out his hand towards the nearest hollow and gestured as if he was pulling in to him. It did, in fact, slide over to them until Akiyo's hand was resting on its mask. The hollow let out a roar and looked like it was about to bite Akiyo's hand off, but the hand began to glow just then and the entire beast went rigid. A high, whine came from it and Ishida was quite certain that the creature was in agony but unable to do anything about it.

The light from Akiyo's hand grew brighter and as it did, the white of the hollow seemed to dim. Little by little, it seemed as if it was becoming a part of the whiteness all around them, bleaching out to nothing. After a few minutes, there was nothing left of the hollow.

Akiyo slowly lowered his hand and turned back to face Ishida. "Did that used to be a human!" the Quincy snapped at him.

Akiyo shrugged, "probably not. I haven't taken many humans, not yet at least. Most of those that I have haven't become hollows yet."

"But some have," Ishida said in accusation.

Akiyo shrugged, "Some have. But what does it matter? All hollows were once humans, and you kill them without reservation all the time."

"That's different," Ishida replied, confident that it was an entirely different scenario. "I kill only to keep from being killed. And I'm not the one who turned them into hollows in the first place!"

Akiyo shrugged again, "what does it matter to me what you think? You have no say in the matter. I merely thought that you might like a look around." With that he turned his back on Ishida and walked away.

"Hey!" Ishida called after him, but the Zanpakuto faded back into the whiteness.

XXX

"How is our newest recruit doing?" Makoto asked his Zanpakuto.

"He has adjusted quite quickly. He hasn't even noticed the bleaching yet. But you did cut his chain pretty close, you won't be able to use his powers for very long."

"I don't need them for long," Makoto replied. "Just long enough for that so called substitute Shinigami to know what I'm doing. He took my friend and family from me, so I will do the same."

XXX

"Where should we bring him?" Inoue asked.

"The safest place would be here, I should think," Urahara said, surprising all of them. He shrugged. "If you were to all fight him anywhere in Karkura, then a whole city block would be demolished, if not more. Fighting here will minimize the destruction of the town."

Chad nodded once and said, "Sounds good."

"Good, now, Ririn, Cloud, you will follow Inoue. Nova, you'll be with Chad. Rukia, I would like you to stay close to the shop and help to get Makoto down here when one of them brings him in."

"Aye," she said and nodded her head.

"Ichigo," he said, turning to the orange haired Shinigami. "I want you out there, but not too close to either Chad or Inoue… I think Makoto wants you to know when he attacks, but not necessarily close enough to interfere."

"But, Urahara…" Ichigo began to protest.

He shook his head. "You're going to have to trust everyone, Ichigo. I don't think Makoto will take the bait if you're too close, he probably knows that he's no match for you as he is. He wants to absorb as much power as he can before he goes up against you."

It was plain that Ichigo did not like the plan, but he accepted, reluctantly.

"What about me?" Kon asked, walking over to them.

"You're going to stay here with me," Urahara said. Kon blanched at that. It was extremely strange to see Ishida's face with such a clear expression of fear on it.

"We can't have you out there in Ishida's body when he thinks that he's already killed him," Ichigo told the mod soul. "It could ruin everything."

"Why can't I be outside with Nee-san?" he pleaded, as he tried to reach out to Rukia.

The petite Shinigami simply reached out and punched Kon in the face to keep him away from her. "Ow! Careful, Nee-san… That's Ishida's nose you just made bleed. I'm not as durable like this as I usually am!"

"I'll apologize to Ishida later, but you might want to be more careful with his body because it's going to be you that he blames…" she said to him.

"That's gratitude for ya…" he grumbled and slinked away.

Everyone ignored him as Urahara said, "Everyone ready then? Good! And good luck!"

With that everyone left, taking up their positions.

Chad wandered downtown, seemingly aimlessly. He had seen a few friends of his from school and they had invited him to join them, but he refused and continued his wanderings. If he concentrated, he could just make out Nova's presence, always near by but never within sight. He kind of envied Nova for how well he was able to disappear when he wanted. Chad had never had that luxury.

But right now was not the time to want to disappear. Right now he needed to be seen. More accurately, he needed to be felt. He realized that it was entirely possible that this Makoto didn't know what he looked like and was simply searching for a human with an unusually high spirit pressure.

With that in mind, he made a conscious effort to allow his reiatsu to leak out, letting it broadcast to anyone with the ability to sense such things where he was. This would either bring in their target, or possibly something else that they didn't exactly want to deal with right then.

Inoue had gone down to the park for her wanderings. Ririn had chosen to go with her in her plushy form so that she could stay with Inoue the whole time. Cloud had remained in human shape and was trying to pull off the stealthy trailing that Nova was with Chad, but he wasn't as good at these things.

After about the fourth time Inoue and Ririn heard Cloud trip over something or rustle in the bushes, Inoue called over to him. "Cloud, why don't you just walk with us? If you keep your reiatsu hidden, I don't think your presence is going to warn Makoto-san off."

He muttered something as he stubbed his toe on a root and then nearly fell out of the tree line. "If you think that it would be all right," he said and walked up to join them."

"Your so-called, 'sneaking around,' would be what scares him off, Cloud," Ririn said to him from her perch on Inoue's shoulder.

Cloud looked offended but Inoue interrupted before he could launch into some speech. "I just feel safe with you here where I can see you, Cloud." It was a harmless lie, but worth it if it kept the peace.

Inoue also was projecting her spiritual energy out, hoping to attract their target. She wasn't very comfortable with this arrangement, but she saw the necessity for it. _Just a little longer, Ishida-kun_, she thought out to him.

Ichigo sat on top of a building near the center of town in his Shinigami form. He was certainly not pleased with how things had come out. He was used to the one charging into the thick of things. Now he was being forced to wait as his friends were used as bait and then he was going to be the diversion as Urahara took on Ichigo's normal roll. Everything about this issue was wrong.

_First I fail to protect Ishida, and now everyone else is risking themselves to fix my mistake while I'm left practically out of things._ He sighed to himself, as he recalled the exchange that Urahara had with him before he had left the shop.

_"Ichigo, I know this is hard for you…" the shopkeeper told him as he rested his hand on Ichigo's shoulder. "But I'm doing this because it has the best chance to save Ishida's soul._

_ "I just wish I could be of more use," Ichigo complained._

_ Urahara gave him a look before he sighed and said, "Ichigo, the main reason that I would rather it was you outside of the sword is because I wouldn't trust myself not to destroy the sword and Shinigami while Ishida is still inside."_

_ Ichigo looked up at Urahara with a shocked expression. "You wouldn't…" he began._

_ Urahara shook his head and said, "I have always been one to eliminate the enemy as quickly as possible. My Zanpakuto is the same way. If I were to send you inside the Sword, I could easily destroy them and both of you before you would have a chance to escape."_

_ Ichigo looked down and said, "Are you saying you trust me more to do this than yourself?"_

_ Urahara nodded. "I do… I know that you will do whatever it takes to get us out safely. I just have one request, Ichigo…"_

_ He looked up at the ex-Shinigami. "Don't let Makoto get away. If it is a choice between letting Makoto escape or destroying him along with the sword while we're still inside, kill him. Ishida and myself are not worth the countless lives that this Shinigami is able to destroy with his power. If left unchecked, he could gain enough strength to challenge the 13 protection squads and Soul Society cannot afford another confrontation like that."_

Ichigo thought over what Urahara had told him and shook his head. He understood the request that the man had made, but he didn't think he could follow through with it if it came down to a choice.

He stood up and gripped his sword a little tighter as he thought that he couldn't fail Ishida again. He was just going to have to make sure that it didn't come down to a choice.

That decided, he was about to move along to another roof for a little while when he suddenly felt a flicker of familiar reiatsu that he had not expect. He had been searching for Chad and Inoue's, trying to tell if they had run into any trouble yet, but they still both seemed to be fine. This new flicker, however, was extremely disconcerting.

He spun around and faced the direction of the elementary. There was no doubt, his sister, Karin, was in trouble and no one had thought to make sure that she was protected. Ichigo berated himself as he took off for the school. Of course they should have remembered that Karin was also strongly gifted with spirit powers. She would also show up as an easy target for Makoto.

"Hang on, Karin!" he said as he switched to his Shunpo and raced across the Karakura skyline to his sister's aid.


	4. Chapter 4

Makoto sat on the roof of the elementary school, searching for his newest target. "There are other, more powerful targets not that far," the voice of his Zanpakuto whispered in his head.

"They're on the list, but right now they are trying to lure me in. I'd rather pick my targets on my own terms," he told his sword. He could sense both the giant and the girl, trying to draw him in by sending out their reiatsu. It was obvious that they hadn't even thought to protect Kurosaki Ichigo's family, even though they were some of the brightest points of spiritual energy in the town.

Just then, the recess bell rang and the kids poured forth from the doors into the playground. Makoto's gaze was drawn to a young girl with short black hair. She was running with a group of boys, carrying a soccer ball, headed for the soccer field. "Perfect," he thought as he moved to make it to the field first.

XXX

Kurosaki Karin had had a bad feeling all day. She felt as if there was someone watching her ever sense she got to school that day, but she couldn't see anyone there. As she ran for the soccer field with her friends at recess, the feeling nearly overpowered her. Something was very wrong today…

She began to slow and then finally come to a stop just at the edge of the field. Her friends stopped just ahead of her, having past by when she halted and turned around to face her. "What's wrong, Karin?" one of them asked. She ignored his question and continued to scan the area. Someone was out there, watching her.

"Come on Karin!" another of the boys called. "Let's start before someone else gets the field!"

Karin blinked and tried to shake the feeling off and then stepped onto the field. She was about to throw the ball off to one of her friends when suddenly a ball came sailing in from seemingly no where and struck the ground with so much force near the boys, that it sent them flying.

Karin gasped and looked up to where the ball had come from. Standing in the air above the field was someone dressed like a Shinigami, pulling the ball back by the chain that was on the hilt of his sword. "Hello, little Kurosaki…" the man said to her.

Terror filled her as she realized that this was the presence that she had been sensing all day. That meant that she was his target. Glancing at her friends, she saw they were scattered about the ground looking daze and very confused as to what had just happened. Clearly they couldn't see the Shinigami or his weapon that had knocked them over. She needed to get this guy away from them before he hurt them as well.

Gathering every bit of her strength and courage, she whipped the soccer ball at the man and then took off running in the opposite direction. She didn't stop to look if she hit him, but oddly enough, she did. Makoto clearly hadn't expected anything from Karin, least of all a soccer ball hurled with that much force.

The ball crashed into his face, sending him flying backward and nearly loosing his stance in the air. He shook himself and stood up again, allowing his anger to flow through him. "Now it's personal, bitch." He muttered and took off after the girl. It might have started out as a way to Ichigo, but now he was ready to deliver a bit of pay back.

Karin ran as fast as she could off of the school grounds and into the nearby public field. This time of day there weren't many there since it was mostly the kids from school that would play there. As she made it into the field, she began to wonder what she could possibly do against this guy. She didn't have any power other than being able to sense him that could be of any use. And why was he targeting her anyway? If this really were a Shinigami, then why would he target a fellow Shinigami's sister?

Suddenly the ball slammed into the ground in front of her, sending up debris and knocking her back. She cried out as she flew a few feet and landed on her butt. Stunned, she looked up and saw the Shinigami descending from the air, diving for her. His face was contorted in rage and she knew that there was no way that she was going to be able to get out of his way.

She closed her eyes, waiting for his strike to hit her when suddenly there was a rush of cold air past her and the sound of metal against metal. She opened her eyes to see an unlikely sight. Standing between her and her attacker, with sword blocking the sword aimed for her, was Toshiro.

XXX

Ichigo suddenly came to a halt as he was shocked by the new presence that he sensed. Suddenly, right next to where he sensed his sister, was Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya. "Toshiro?" he said out loud, wondering where he had come from, but realizing that it didn't matter. If the tenth squad captain was with his sister, then he didn't have anything to worry about.

With a slight feeling of relief, he hurried on to meet up with Toshiro. He was confident that the captain could take care of his sister; that was not an issue. But what would be a problem would be if he didn't know about Ishida and actually killed Makoto right now. If that happened, any hope of retrieving his friend's soul now would be lost.

XXX

Karin stared up at the back of her once friend and soccer teammate, Toshiro. At the time she hadn't known that he was actually a captain among the Shinigami. He had been in a human form and looked to be about her age. She decided to invite him to play soccer with her and her team against some middle schoolers. Why he had bothered to show up, she wasn't sure. But it was a good thing he did since a hollow also decided to show up.

"Toshiro?" she said, still wondering what had brought him here.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, brilliant green eyes met her own as he said, "Run, Karin. I can handle this."

She blinked at him as it took her a second to process what he had just said. With a grunt of effort, Toshiro pushed the other Shinigami back and took up a defensive position against him. "Karin, run," he said again without taking his eyes off of Makoto. "Ichigo is nearly here, he'll take care of you."

"Ichigo…" she said, and then realized that she could also sense her brother coming closer. She stood up and ran in the direction that she felt him coming from.

"Captain Hitsugaya…" Makoto said as he squared off to the captain. "Who would have thought that you would have bothered to dirty your hands to take care of me?"

"You are under arrest, Makoto Tadaaki… please, lower your sword and come back to soul society with me."

Makoto laughed at him. "What, just give up? You might be strong, _captain_ but I'm certainly not afraid of you." With that he lashed out with the ball, sending it at Hitsugaya. The captain deflected it with his sword, but the chain swung around and wrapped around his blade.

Makoto grinned at him, thinking that he had already gotten the captain in a tight spot. Suddenly the cresset shaped chain blade lashed out at Makoto, wrapping around his own Zanpakuto and causing a layer of ice to form along the blade.

Makoto glared back at the small Shinigami in front of him as he felt the ice creep down the hilt of his sword and touch his hand. The chain that he was holding in his other hand was also becoming frigid from the intense cold that radiated from the blade that the chain was wrapped around.

With a savage snarl, Makoto yanked back on the chain, releasing it from Hitsugaya's sword and then swung low at the captain's feet. As he did this, the ball began to glow with a white light around it, doubling its size. Hitsugaya jumped to avoid it, but had judge only for the ball itself. The light around it was an intense field of spirit energy that burned into the captain's legs and tripped him, sending him to the ground.

As he fell, he yanked back on the chain that was still wrapped around his opponent's blade, causing the crescent blade to slash back and cut into Makoto's chest as it returned to its wielder. Now up on one knee, Hitsugaya swung the chain over his head once and back at Makoto.

Makoto had reeled back from the slash, but was ready for the next attack. He deflected the chain blade with his sword and then rushed in for a close attack, sending his chain ball in ahead of him. Hitsugaya dodged the ball but wound up right where Makoto had wanted him. He brought his sword in just in time to block Makoto's attack.

"You're not going to win this one, Makoto," Hitsugaya told the other as they both pushed against each other's blades.

Makoto just snarled at Hitsugaya and snapped the chain back, bringing the ball flying in at Hitsugaya's back. With a burst of Shunpo, Hitsugaya maneuvered to the other side of Makoto. That left Makoto open for his own chain ball attack. With a quick snap of the chain, he sent the ball flying off to the side and slammed into the ground, causing a blast of dirt and dust to fly up.

Hitsugaya was forced to shield his eyes from the debris and temporarily lost sight of Makoto. As the dust settled, Makoto was standing with sword held ready in one hand while he spun the ball and chain around in the other. An enormous amount of spirit energy was radiating from him and showed in a haze of white around his body. Hitsugaya could sense that the vast majority of the energy wasn't coming directly from Makoto, but rather his Zanpakuto.

"Who isn't going to win this one?" Makoto taunted. "I have more power than you could dream.

"Stolen power," Hitsugaya called back. "Power that you don't know how to control properly."

"We'll see about that," Makoto said, suddenly launching the ball at Hitsugaya again. The captain dived out of the way but was slightly surprised how much faster it was moving now. As it barely missed hitting him, he felt the charge of tremendous power radiating from it. Being hit by that in this state would do some serious damage.

"Soten ni Zase, Hyorinmaru!" Hitsugaya called, sending out an ice dragon from the tip of his sword. He sent it directly at Makoto, forcing him to deflect it with his sword. As the dragon was forced to fly upward, the chain blade came sailing in, arcing in from behind Makoto and wrapping around the arm holding the ball and chain.

The blade bit into the flesh of his shoulder before tearing back, ripping away flesh along with it. Makoto cried in pain and stumbled back, just barely being able to avoid the chain blades second attack at his back.

Hitsugaya dismissed the ice dragon and took a few steps closer to Makoto. The rouge Shinigami was kneeling on one leg on the ground, holding his injured shoulder and panting with exertion. "As I said, you can't win this one, Makoto, please, come back to soul society with me."

Makoto took a few more gasps before he gathered himself and stood up, facing off to Hitsugaya. "I will not give in to the likes of you," he said and immediately yanked back on the chain.

Hitsugaya gasp and glanced behind him as he realized that he was not going to be able to avoid the strike from the ball this time. The sizzling power from it was enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck and there was nothing that he could do to avoid its impact.

With a sudden crash, the ball's momentum was stopped, coming up just short of striking the captain. Hitsugaya gave a slight grin at the black form that had swooped in and deflected the attack at the last minute. "Nice timing, Ichigo," he told the substitute Shinigami.

Ichigo glanced over his own shoulder at Hitsugaya, "Close call there, Toshiro. You must be getting slow."

Hitsugaya winced and said, "I asked you not to call me Toshiro."

Ichigo let out a laugh as he turned all the way around to face Hitsugaya. "Sorry, old habits…"

With a sudden clink of a chain, the two allies realized that Makoto was launching into action again. He swung the ball up and over both of their heads. Hitsugaya was impressed that it seemed to be radiating even more power now than it had before. "I'll be seeing you again soon, Kurosaki," Makoto said and slammed the ball down into the ground between them. An even larger explosion of power, dust, and dirt erupted from the ground, knocking both Hitsugaya and Ichigo back.

When they were able to see again, Makoto had vanished. "Damn it!" Ichigo cried. He searched the area desperately for Makoto's reiatsu, but that had vanished as well. For having so much power, he certainly was a master at hiding it.

"We'll find him again," Hitsugaya said as he brushed himself off. "Is your sister all right?"

Ichigo nodded, "Yeah. I found her running towards me. She said that you could use some help."

"Che," Hitsugaya clucked. "I wouldn't have if I could just simply take him down." He said.

"So Matsumoto told you about Ishida?" Ichigo asked.

"Yeah, I was trying not to do much harm to his Zanpakuto or to kill him. Otherwise I could have finished him off in the first exchange."

"With that much power?" Ichigo asked slightly shocked. He was a little afraid that the amount of power that he had felt coming off of that sword was possibly even more than he could match.

"With Makoto, it's not about the power, it's about how it's used. He might have a tremendous amount of raw power, but he doesn't know how to control it."

Ichigo shrugged and walked over to the crater that Makoto had made with that last impact. He knelt down beside it and examined the effects. It was certainly an impressive sight; nearly three meters deep and twice as much across. And Ichigo had a feeling that that wasn't all of the power that Makoto could call upon.

Suddenly Ichigo gasped as he reached out his hand and touch the edge of the crater, "Ishida's reiatsu is here!" he exclaimed when his hand touched the disturbed dirt.

"Yeah," Hitsugaya sighed. "I felt it too. I had been hoping to bring him down quickly before he was able to use too much of the spirit power that he had stolen. No doubt Ishida's power is mixed up in all of it."

Ichigo felt horrified that Makoto was throwing Ishida's own energy back at them. Now he understood the other reason he had sensed to Urahara asking him not to let the fight go too long. He must have understood that Makoto would be draining their own power from them.

Ichigo stood up, a new determination set to his face. "We're going to bring this bastard down before he can hurt anyone else."

Hitsugaya sighed, "That's why I came as soon as I could… That is exactly what Soul Society has decided, only they want him eliminated at all costs."

Ichigo spun around and stared at Hitsugaya accusingly. "You mean destroy him before we can save Ishida's soul!"

The captain nodded. "The Captain commander is going to be sending a team to do just that. After Matsumoto filled me in, I snuck away and got here first, hoping to subdue him and get him where you could try and save Ishida before the others could get to him." He sighed again and looked away. "I underestimated the amount of power that he could call upon."

Ichigo was silent a moment before he asked, "Who is the old man sending?"

"Second squad captain, Soifon and a group of her elite guard." He replied.

Ichigo swore under his breath. If it had been a different Captain, he might have been able to convince them to give him some time. But Soifon would adhere directly to her instruction without exception. The only one that could possibly sway the second division captain was Yoruichi, but she had been off on some mission for Urahara for the last few weeks and no one knew when she would be back.

"I left Matsumoto to try and buy us some time, but I don't know how long she can stall."

"What do you mean the gates are down!" Captain Soifon demanded of her subordinate that just reported that they couldn't leave for the real world yet.

The young man flinched and bowed as he said, "I'm sorry captain, but no one has been able to get any of the gates to open."

Matsumoto hid a smile as she walked by the scene, one of the small explosive devices that she had 'borrowed' from the twelfth division hidden in her sleeve…

Hitsugaya sighed as he thought of how Matsumoto might attempt to stall the second division.

"We have to work quickly if we are going to rescue Ishida," Hitsugaya said.

"Well it seems that he's targeting me and my friends and family for some reason, so we had hoped to lure him into a trap. Unfortunately, we were only watching Inoue and Chad and didn't take my sister into account…" Ichigo said with a sigh.

"So he hasn't told you who he is yet, I take it?" Hitsugaya said.

Ichigo shook his head, "Do you know?"

The captain nodded, "We've done a little more digging in soul society and think we have come up with a motive for why he has targeted you."

Makoto Tadaaki sat in solitude on the top of a roof at the back of a darkened ally. He had already used the energy from his captive souls to heal his wounds that the tenth squad's captain had delivered and now he was brooding on how much he wanted to thrash Kurosaki Ichigo.

Ever since that day when he had heard that the substitute Shinigami had been responsible for the death of his half brother, Hanza, Makoto had vowed to carry out justice on Kurosaki. Makoto had loved his brother, but he had been born outside of the Nukui line and so would not be accepted into the guard for the Kasumioji house.

The only place left for Makoto to go where his fighting skills could be put to use was the 13 protection squads as a Shinigami. He had enjoyed his time there, until they betrayed him. They allowed the murderer of his brother to get off unpunished and had the nerve to say that Hanza has been the criminal.

His brother may have gotten mixed up with some bad dealings, but it was his job to follow the direction of the Kasumioji house. He was only doing his duty, and that… that pretend Shinigami, came along and killed him for doing his duty.

Makoto ground his teeth in irritation as he thought about it. Kurosaki Ichigo had taken his brother from him, the only person that had ever really mattered in his life. Now he intended to take all those that mattered to Kurosaki and use their own power against him. He was going to crush that upstart if it was the last thing he did.

And he would eliminate anyone who got in his way…

"So, he's the half brother of Nukui Hanza…" Ichigo said as he and Hitsugaya made their way back to Urahara's shop. The sun was now setting and it didn't appear that Makoto was going to show again today.

Hitsugaya nodded, "It seems that he may have developed a grudge against you, Ichigo." He said. "You took his brother away from him, so now he's going to take you friends and family away, before killing you."

Ichigo sighed, why was it that he was always roped into these things. "I didn't even kill Hanza," Ichigo complained. "The guy killed himself by using that Bakkoto!"

With a sigh, Hitsugaya said, "I know that. But it is hard for someone to see where a loved has gone wrong. Makoto doesn't want to believe that it was his brother that had been in the wrong; so he had come to believe that you were his downfall. He needed to blame someone and you were the last person that Hanza fought…"

Ichigo ran a frustrated hand through his hair and said, "And now my friends and family are getting hurt because this guy couldn't accept his own brother's guilt!"

"There's no helping it, Ichigo… we're just going to have to find him before captain Soifon does and enact whatever plan it is that you've come up with."

Ichigo was silent as he began to wonder how well this plan was going to go now that he fully realized the power that Makoto had at his command. Adding Urahara's own power to the mix would probably only make things even worse… but it was the only plan with which they had to go.


	5. Chapter 5

Ishida felt miserable. He weakly pushed himself off of his stomach and rolled onto his back, trying to find his breath again.

Everything had been just the same as the moment that he had gotten there. He was wandering around in that white world, trying to find another soul that might talk to him, tell him what was going on, show some kind of awareness to their situation, but with no luck.

Suddenly everything seemed to become even brighter, if that was at all possible. The souls that he had been closest to began to cringe and cower with even more fear than they had already been exhibiting. That was the only clue that Ishida had before he was suddenly wracked with pain.

The same pressure that he had felt when he had first been falling into this world overtook him again. He dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath through the waves of excruciating pain. He felt as if he were being both crushed and torn apart at the same time.

Distantly, he could here the other souls and hollows suffering in the same way, but it was hard to feel for them as the pain only intensified.

Looking down, Ishida noticed that the end of the last link in his soul chain was beginning to disintegrate. The spirit energy that was being drawn from him was destroying his chain, bringing him a step closer to becoming a hollow.

In desperation, he grabbed the end of the chain, falling forward as he did from lack of support from that arm. He tried to will the chain to stay in tact, but he could feel the link disappearing from his grasp.

And still the pain continued. He didn't know if he could endure another moment of it as he lay there, sobbing, fearing that this would suck the last of his spirit energy away, turning him into a mindless hollow whose only fate would be to go through this again until there was nothing left of him.

Suddenly, the pain stopped. He lay there, trembling and gasping for breath. The link that he had so desperately been clinging to had completely vanished. He now only had four links left before he became a hollow.

How long he lay like that until he was able to push himself over, he wasn't sure. For a brief moment, he heard a slight whine of pain from a distant hollow. Apparently it was possible to draw on just one spirit at a time when the need for power wasn't as great. But that didn't make Ishida feel much better.

While lying on his back, he began to think through the whole experience. The pain had been far too great to try and analyze the situation, but now that his mind had cleared some, he tried to remember everything that he had sensed. He realized that just as the pain had started, he had become very cold. For some reason he didn't think that this was a side effect of the energy drain.

As he mulled it over in his mind, he realized that the cold had had a certain feel to it as if he had sensed something like it before. Then it hit him… It was Captain Hitsugaya's reiatsu! The tenth division Captain had that feel to him. That completely numbing coldness was something that only he was able to produce.

Apparently, Makoto had been in a battle against Hitsugaya. But which one won, Ishida couldn't say. Then another memory came to him. Just before that last bone-crushing wave of pain, Ishida had sensed the faint stirrings of another familiar reiatsu… Kurosaki's.

Yes, Ichigo had been there just before that last blast. Knowing his friend, he had probably turned up at the last minute to help Hitsugaya and caused Makoto to run, fearing their combined power. As he should…

With that worked out, Ishida took another deep breath and then heaved himself up off the ground. He habitually began to brush himself off though there was nothing here that could have gathered on his uniform. As he ran his gloved hands down his shirt, he noticed that something was missing from the uniform. Pulling back his mantle, he saw that the blue cross that had been a part of his mostly white uniform had faded away. His once mostly white outfit, was now entirely white.

As he was looking down at himself, the long sides of his hair fell down into his eyes and he saw that the ends were now white instead of black. Upon closer examination, about the last inch of his hair had now turned white and then another inch after that had faded to gray. Pulling off his gloves, he saw that his skin was also becoming paler. He was becoming like the rest of the souls and hollow in here. He was bleaching out and becoming a part of the rest of the whiteness around him.

XXX

"My, my," Urahara said as he shook his head. "I hadn't expected Makoto to go after your sister, Ichigo. Especially not with Inoue and Chad proving to be more powerful targets."

"It's not raw power that this guy is after though," Hitsugaya said.

"Yes, I see that now…" Urahara said as he hid his face behind his fan again. "A revenge situation really does complicate matters."

"And we're running out of time," Ichigo said. "Makoto is draining Ishida with every fight and Soifon is going to be showing up any time now and finish him off!"

"We need to find him tonight," Chad said.

"Yes, I see that we do…" Urahara said in a contemplative manner. After a moment he snapped his fan shut and said, "Well, that just means that Ichigo is going to have to go out and bring him in!"

"But I thought that he would avoid me until he had all my friends!" he said.

Hitsugaya shook his head, "That was before you knew that he was out for revenge. If you goad him enough, he'll respond to you."

"Yes," Urahara said. "I had thought that his interest in you had been purely in pitting his strength against yours, so naturally, he would want to become stronger before facing you… But if it is your death that he wishes for the most, he might be willing to give up the pursuit of your friends if provoked enough."

Ichigo nodded, "I suppose that makes sense."

"So, all Ichigo has to do is make this Makoto guy angry…?" Kon spoke up. "That shouldn't be too hard for him."

Ichigo was about to punch Kon until he looked and saw Ishida's body sitting there. He just couldn't bring himself to hit him, even if it wasn't really Ishida.

"So, now it looks like you'll get your wish, Ichigo," Urahara said with a smile as he stood up. "Now you get to play the role of the bait."

So it was Ichigo that was sent out that night. Ririn was sent to his house in her plushy form to watch over his family, but Urahara doubted that Makoto would make another try for them that night. Chad and Inoue stayed back at Urahara's shop. The hope was that, though Ichigo had other friends with spiritual power, Makoto didn't know about them and so would not have them as targets.

That left Ichigo as the only target for Makoto's wrath still within reach. Ichigo was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, trying to make his presence known. He was searching for the feeling of Makoto, but with the rouge's ability to mask it, Ichigo doubted very much that he would be able to pick up on it.

Suddenly, a ball and chain came sailing out of the sky at Ichigo. He leapt out of the way just in time, allowing the ball to impact and smash the roof that he had just been standing on. "What, hiding your friends, Kurosaki?" a taunting voice came from above him.

Looking up, Ichigo saw Makoto hovering above as he reeled the chain back in. "Hiding, I just made sure they wouldn't get in the way while I take care of you like I did your brother!" Ichigo yelled back.

The look on Makoto's face went from joyful taunting to sheer rage. "So…" he said slowly through clenched teeth as he began to swing the ball and chain around beside him. "You found out who I am…"

"Yeah, I should have recognized the same foul personality right away," Ichigo called back.

Suddenly a flare of white light burst from the ball a split second before it was sent sailing at him. Ichigo leapt back, heading for the direction of Urahara's. He saw now, though, that he was going to have to be careful how far he pushed Makoto. If he got him too angry, he was going to try and kill him right here, drawing on the spirit power in his Zanpakuto.

Ichigo made sure that Makoto had spotted him in his new location before calling back, "Is that all the better you can do? You aren't worth my time!" With that he turned and ran for Urahara's.

With a bellow of rage, he could hear Makoto was in hot pursuit. All thought of leaving Ichigo for last had obviously been driven from his mind. The rooftop just to Ichigo's left suddenly burst into fragments as Makoto threw his ball and chain out again. Ichigo was a little relieved though to see that the ball wasn't glowing this time. With luck, that meant that Makoto wasn't drawing power from Ishida to power it right now.

Another blast to Ichigo's right told him that he needed to put on a little bit more speed if he wanted to stay ahead of Makoto. With a short switch into Shunpo, he gained a little more distance.

But as he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that Makoto was actually slowing down. Ichigo could give him time to cool off enough to realize that this was a trap.

He paused and turned around, pulling his sword off of his back. "What, is the great brother of Nukui Hanza unable to keep up? You want to fight me, Makoto? You're going to have to do it where I choose. Follow me if you think you can pick up where your brother failed!"

With that Ichigo turned and fled again. From the sound of it though, he had gotten Makoto's attention again. Now if only he could keep it just a little while longer…

Rukia and Hitsugaya stood on the roof to Urahara's shop waiting for Ichigo to return. "Here he comes," Hitsugaya said as he launched himself up to a higher location to wait for Ichigo to arrive with Makoto.

Rukia also launched herself higher and in the opposite direction, waiting for their moment to make sure that Makoto made in it down into the practice grounds under the shop. Soon enough, they saw Ichigo heading their way with a very enraged Makoto just behind him.

Rukia smothered a smile at that. She had silently agreed with Kon's suggestion that Ichigo wouldn't have a problem irritating Makoto.

As he approached, Ichigo dove for the shop, entering through the door and disappearing inside. As they had feared, this move made Makoto pause, sensing that something was up. But before he could back out of Ichigo's challenge, Rukia and Hitsugaya acted.

"Tsugi no mai, Hakuren, Sode no Shirayuki!" Rukia called out, stabbing her sword downward. Four identical strikes pierced the air in front of her and a wave of white washed forward, forcing Makoto to dodge by positioning himself directly over the shop.

"Soten ni Zase, Hyorinmaru!" Hitsugaya called a split second behind Rukia's attack. As soon as Makoto was in position, Hitsugaya's ice dragon flew from the sky above him, catching Makoto in his jaw, and driving him through the roof of the shop, through the floor and strait down all the way into the practice grounds below.

As the dust cleared, everyone that had gathered in the practice grounds, Ichigo, Cloud, Nova, Kon, Inoue, Chad, and Urahara, saw Makoto stagger to his feet and pull his sword up. He grabbed the chain and began to swing the ball around again.

"I should have known that a coward like you was leading me into a trap!" he yelled at Ichigo.

Ichigo gripped his Zanpakuto and stood ready as he replied. "You're not getting away with what you have done, Makoto."

"I'm not?" He yelled back, increasing the speed of his swings. "I'm not getting away…? You're the one who isn't getting away with what you've done! You killed my brother!" With that, he launched the ball at Ichigo, but Inoue's shield blocked it.

Makoto turned and looked at her and grinned. "So, not hiding the friends anymore, I see… Good, we can all play then."

Yanking back on the chain, Makoto hauled the ball off of the ground again and then swung it at Inoue. This time Chad pulled back with his right arm and knocked it off course, sending the ball smashing into a rock to Inoue's left.

Makoto was already pulling back and swinging it off in another direction, this time at Cloud, but as he did this, he grabbed the chain at the center and flung the sword out towards Nova.

Nova was already distracted since he was teleporting Cloud out of harms way. Just as Cloud was sent to the other side of the circle before the ball collided with him, the Zanpakuto struck Nova in the arm. As Makoto pulled the sword back to him, Nova's spirit pill came out of his Gigai with it.

The pill went flying through the air. Makoto saw this and recognized it for what it was and changed the trajectory of his sword to slice the pill in the air. Suddenly Kon leapt through the space just above the sword and snatched Nova's pill out of the path of the blade.

"No," Makoto said. "You're dead. I killed you!" Kon continued to run, but now Makoto had a new target that he wanted to focus on. Makoto reversed the swing of his weapons and now sent his Zanpakuto heading towards Inoue while he launched the ball out had Kon.

Kon glanced back and saw the ball heading for him. Knowing that he was in Ishida's body and that he would be blamed for any damage done to it, he put on a new burst of speed, but the ball seemed to be attracted to him, even to the point that it would turn with him. Desperate, Kon hoped that this plan would work. He quickly popped Nova's pill into his mouth, forcing his own pill to pop out.

Luckily Nova took in the situation quite quickly as he reached out and snatched Kon from the air and then teleported both of them out of the way of the ball. Nova reappeared near Ichigo. "Kon, are you alright?" Ichigo asked him having just barley seen what had happened since he had been deflecting the blow sent at Inoue.

"Nova," Nova said to Ichigo. He held out his hand to show that he was holding Kon's pill.

"Mod-souls huh?" Makoto said and he pulled both of his weapons back to himself. He held the chain in the middle and was now swinging both of the weapons around and a around to either side of him. "That explains how the Quincy is still up and about. I thought it was strange since I know I have been using his power…"

With that both the ball and the Zanpakuto began to glow. Ichigo was about to rush Makoto, realizing that they had pushed the rouge too far and he was draining the spirit energy again. But before he could move, Urahara, advanced on him, to all appearances, wielding nothing more than his cane.

Makoto grinned and muttered, "Another human friend, how interesting," and then launched his sword at Urahara. Simultaneously the ball was released and sent skyward, taking Hitsugaya by surprise as he had thought his decent into the practice field had been unnoticed. The ball slammed into him, knocked him back up into the painted sky. Luckily he had had just enough time to wrap his ice wings around him before the ball had hit, leaving him with minimum damage.

But as that was happening, Ichigo had kept an eye on the sword and Urahara. He thought that Urahara was actually going to completely dodge the blade. In fact, Ichigo was sure that the shopkeeper had moved completely out of the way. But just as the blade was passing him, he moved just enough into the strike that it sliced into his arm as it sailed by.

As it went, Urahara's spirit was pulled out of his body with the blade, soul chain trailing along with him. His body crumpled to the ground where it had been and his soul fell to the ground several meters away. He scrambled to his feet again, giving a good impression that he was quite stunned and shocked from the blow.

Makoto laughed as he jerked back on the chain, pulling his blade back on a course to cut through the Urahara's soul chain. At the last second, Urahara grabbed his soul chain and jerked it closer to him. When the blade sliced through it, there was a much longer portion of it still attached to Urahara's soul than his body.

Dutifully playing his part, Ichigo yelled out, "No!" as Urahara's body jerked when the chain was severed. Makoto turned and gave Ichigo a sickening grin as he pointed the Zanpakuto at Urahara's soul without even looking and said, "consume."

The same light that had grabbed Ishida's soul shot out and pulled Urahara towards the blade and consumed him. Ichigo didn't have to act pained when he saw this. He felt the same pain now as he did when Ishida had disappeared into the sword, even though it was part of the plan. The sight of seeing another friend being consumed by the sword though was enough to remind him of his past failure and that there was no guarantee that either Urahara or Ishida were going to come out of that sword again.

Makoto laughed at the sight on Ichigo's face as the glow on his weapons diminished again. "You see, Kurosaki, I will take them all, one by one, and then, I'll take you."

As he taunted Ichigo, Makoto missed that Nova teleported Urahara's body to himself and then bent over and put Kon's pill in his mouth. Kon gasped and looked around through Urahara's eyes. "I'm in HIM?" Kon exclaimed. He looked at Nova, "I thought you were supposed to take his place?"

Nova shrugged. "You were easier. Thank you for your save," he told Kon.

Kon shook his head and stood up, feeling pretty wobbly standing on Urahara's clogs. "Thank me when this is over," he said as he looked over the fight.

Makoto was wind milling both the ball and sword around like crazy, causing destruction of the rocks all around as everyone kept narrowly ducking and dodging the attacks. But Kon could tell that everyone was holding back, no doubt to try and prevent Makoto from feeling he needed to draw on the spirit power in his sword for now.

"It's not going to take long for Mr. Slice happy over there to realize that we're just toying with him," Kon said to Nova.

Nova nodded once before he reached out his arm to steady Cloud as he was knocked back after getting hit from the ball. "Oh, Thank you," Cloud said.

But Nova was looking at his wrist where something had come loose when he grabbed Cloud. It was Ishida's Quincy charm. Cloud and Kon both looked at it too and Kon asked, "Nova, can you use that thing since you're in his body?"

"I don't know," Nova said. He held out his arm as he had seen Ishida do before calling his bow into being. Suddenly a blue circle with a cross through it appeared in his hand. The webbing that was normally there for Ishida was missing, but there was a type of a bow there now.

Cloud and Kon exchanged a look before patting Nova on the back and then running in opposite directions. Nova wasn't quite sure what to do now that he had the bow, but he figured he might as well give it a try. He brought his other hand up and drew back as he had seen Ishida do before. A weak looking blue shaft appeared in his other hand. Nova tried to concentrate to give it more form, but apparently, not actually having a Quincy soul was a handicap for him. He released what he was able to create and watched as it flew in the direction of Makoto.

Unfortunately it didn't even make it that far before it evaporated into the air. But that gave Nova an idea. He pulled back again and sent another wobbly spirit arrow at Makoto, but this time, created a wormhole just in front of the bow, with the exit just behind Makoto's right shoulder. As he released, the arrow shot into the wormhole and immediately out right into Makoto's shoulder. The Shinigami yelled in pain and lost control of the ball as it had been shooting towards Ichigo at the time.

Ichigo turned and looked at Nova and his jaw dropped a little. He hadn't realized that Nova had figured out how to use Ishida's Quincy powers. It sent another wave of pain through his heart to see Ishida's body standing there with that bow, as incomplete at it was. It almost felt as if he was back with them, but he wasn't.

Makoto growled in anger as he realized what had happened. The arrow had already dissipated and left a neat hole in the back of his shoulder that was leaking a small trail of blood.

"I guess I'm just going to have to kill you again," Makoto yelled and lashed the ball and chain at Nova. Nova went to dodge, but as the ball neared him, it seemed to bend in his direction. At the last second, Nova used his teleportation to get out of the way.

"Hey," Kon yelled to him, "That's what happened when I was trying to dodge that thing a little while ago. Does it move towards people on its own?"

"No," Hitsugaya said as he landed in between Nova and Kon. "It's attracted to Ishida's body. It's his soul trying to return to it."

Kon was about to heave a sigh of relief that he wasn't in Ishida's body anymore when he realized that he was also in a body whose soul was inside that thing. "Wait, that means…!" but he didn't have time to finish his statement at the ball was now headed his way. He turned tail and ran as fast as he could. Still he couldn't manage to get away.

It was Chad that stopped it this time by punching out with his right arm at the chain, breaking its momentum and forcing it to wrap around his arm. As soon as he had it securely around his arm, he yanked on it, pulling the chain out of Makoto's right hand. The man staggered a moment and then saw what had happened.

A split second before it happened Ichigo saw what Makoto had planned. "Chad, let go!" he called. But Chad didn't have time. A suddenly blast of white energy blazed down the chain from the Zanpakuto and also from the ball. The two streams met at Chad's arm, blasting him back and tearing his arm to shreds even despite the armor that was on it.

"Sado-kun!" Inoue yelled and quickly ran to him, sending her healing fairies on ahead of her. By the time she was at his side, he was already encased in the golden glow from her rejection powers.

Ichigo saw that Inoue was taking care of Chad and so turned his attention back to Makoto. Ichigo could tell that he was beginning to realize that they were holding back on him. No one had actually attacked him since Nova had hit him with that weak arrow, and that hadn't done much damage at all.

The rouge Shinigami pulled both of his weapons back in and returned to swinging them around to either side of himself. "So, what is this?" he asked. "You say you want to fight, but this isn't a fight… Come on Kurosaki… just try and hit me."

As he said this he spun the weapons even faster and the white glow began to radiate from them. Ichigo realized that they had reached the point where they were going to have to actually fight him. He wasn't going to hold back on his power anymore so that meant that Urahara didn't have a lot of time left to do whatever it was he was going to do. If they didn't end this fight soon, both Ishida's and Urahara's spirit power would be used up.


	6. Chapter 6

Ishida was sitting on the ground, examining his hands and wondering what the bleaching meant, when he suddenly sensed Ichigo nearby again. For a second, he wondered if Ichigo was somehow trying to figure out a way to get his soul out of there. But then he remembered the look on Ichigo's face when he had seen Ishida's severed chain.

Ichigo had lost hope; Ishida had seen it clearly in the Shinigami's eyes. It didn't seem likely that Ichigo was trying to free him since to Ichigo Ishida was already gone. Ishida sighed, wondering how Ichigo could have given up on him so easily.

_Kurosaki never gives up on anyone, or anything. How could he just let me go like that?_

A second later, none of that mattered as he was wracked with another one of the power drains. Luckily, this time it was quite short. Just a few moments and then it released him. As he sat there panting, he realized that he was going to hate sensing Ichigo's presence pretty soon since that invariably meant that Akiyo was going to be asked to use his power again.

It wasn't long after that, though, that Ishida could sense a lot of familiar people nearby. He felt the cold of Hitsugaya's power hit him again and then suddenly there was a wash of familiar sensations. Inoue, Chad, Ichigo, Rukia, even all of the mod-souls…except for Ririn curiously. Lastly, Ishida thought that he sensed Urahara, but something didn't quite seem right about the signature.

He could feel everyone was using their reiatsu to fight, but oddly enough he was also quite certain that they were all holding back. Maybe they were planning something after all…

Suddenly the pain came again. This time it felt almost double as intense as it had before. Whatever was going on, Makoto was using a vast amount of power to do it.

Still, as unbelievably painful that session had been, it too was fairly short lived. But as it stopped, he thought he heard a slight thump somewhere off to his left. Taking a breath to regain some of his composure, Ishida got up and went to investigate. He didn't have to search very hard for the splash of color in the middle of the whiteness.

"Oh, my, my, what an interesting trip…" Ishida heard Urahara's voice muttering as the shopkeeper slowly got to his feet.

"Urahara-san!" he exclaimed and quickly crossed over to him. "What are you doing here?"

Urahara looked up at hearing Ishida's voice, but he looked right past the Quincy. "Ishida? You there?"

Ishida's brow furrowed, wondering why Urahara couldn't see him and then he remembered what happened when he had first arrived.

"I'm in front of you," he said and reached out to touch Urahara's arm. "It's the white… it took my eyes a while to adjust too."

"Ah," he said as he stared around the room wide eyed, still not seeing anything other than the white. "This could prove to be a problem."

"I think being unable to see is the least of your problems, Urahara-san." Ishida muttered. "You've been kill…" Ishida stopped and realized what he was saying. He looked at the soul chain that was attached to Urahara's chest in confusion. A Shinigami doesn't have a soul chain…

"Urahara, how…?"

"Ah yes, a little spirit tinkering can do amazing things," Urahara said as he reached down and lifted his chain. His chain reached almost all of the way to the floor.

"But why…?"

"Why would I want to make my soul human? So I could come in here after you of course!" he exclaimed.

Ishida was completely taken aback. "You mean… you knew… you knew I was trapped in here?"

He nodded. "And let me tell you, I had to use every trick in the book to convince Ichigo that I was the one to come in after you. But he really wouldn't have been suited for this sort of thi…" suddenly Urahara was cut off as both of them doubled over in pain as the white around them intensified.

"Wha…" Urahara gasped. He was using his cane to stay upright as he knelt on the ground, gasping for breath.

"No…" Ishida murmured. "Not again…" He reached down and felt another link in his chain dissolving.

"This proves… to be… another… problem," Urahara gasped as he tried to stand again, but couldn't manage it through the pain. Somewhere in his efforts, his cane slipped and he fell to the ground.

Ishida had managed to stay in a kneeling position this time, but when the drain stopped, he was short another link. He only had three left.

"Hoo-boy," Urahara muttered as he sat up again. "I didn't expect that."

Ishida nodded, "It's happened a few times now for me."

Urahara looked down and examined his soul chain. The last link had partially worn away, but he didn't seem to loose them as fast at Ishida. He looked up in Ishida's direction, still not able to see him clearly, and asked, "How many links do you have left?"

"Three," he replied coolly.

Urahara nodded, "I was afraid of that." He got up and went over to where Ishida was, but had to find him by feel. Ishida reached out and took Urahara's hand to show him where he was. "Let me examine it…" he said, reaching towards Ishida's chest. The Quincy took the shopkeeper's hand and placed it on his soul chain.

"I had thought that you wouldn't have much left by now…" Urahara said as he moved the end of the chain in his hand. "…and had planned accordingly to give us more time. But I hadn't taken into account how painful the power drain would be."

With a snap, Ishida realized that Urahara put something on the end of his chain. Ishida reached down and looked at it. He had no idea what it was, but it seemed almost like a plastic cap. It was green with a black stripe running down the side, but other than that, he couldn't figure out what it could be.

"Well, let's get to work, shall we? You're going to have to be my eyes now."

"What did you do?" Ishida asked him.

"Hmm? Oh just bought you some time if our friend out there gets power hungry again. That cap will divert whatever power Akiyo tries to draw from you to me."

Ishida stared at Urahara a moment before saying, "So it'll take yours twice as fast?"

Urahara shrugged. "And I have nearly three times as much chain to go through," he said, lifting up his chain as evidence. "The only problem I see is that I won't be much use if that power drain starts up again."

"Use for what? What is it that you have planned?"

"We need to find the center of this place," Urahara said. "It will be where ever the spirit particles are drawn that are leached out of us. Unfortunately, that means we can't exactly look for it until our power is being drained again."

"And then you'll be incapacitated," Ishida finished. "So I'll have to find it… But what then?"

Urahara shook his head. "I think I can reverse the flow, causing the power build up to burst the Zanpakuto wide open… hopefully releasing us in the proce…" Just then the white grew in intensity and Urahara crumpled where he stood. Ishida's quick reflexes were all that prevented the ex-Shinigami from slamming into the ground.

The Quincy gently lowered him onto his side as he gasped and twitched in pain. "Twice the… drain… twice… the pain," he muttered as Ishida held him, not sure what to do. He felt like he was responsible for this, that he shouldn't be letting Urahara take the pain for him. But they would accomplish nothing if they were both incapacitated.

"Ish…ida," Urahara gasped as he grabbed onto the Quincy's arm, squeezing it hard enough to cause the young man to wince. "f…find it… hurry."

Ishida extracted his arm and gave Urahara's should a squeeze before he got up. "I'll find it," he told him and then turned and began his search. When he had stood, he had glanced at Urahara's soul chain. If this drain kept up as is, Ishida estimated that Urahara would have about fifteen minutes before he would be changed into a hollow. That certainly didn't leave Ishida a lot of time.

_Hang on, Urahara-san, _he thought back to the ex-Shinigami. _I'll find the center_.

XXX

"Bankai!" Ichigo cried and rushed forward as his body and sword transformed in a blast of black and red power. His sword darted in, stopping the swing of the ball and sending it flying off towards the sky-like ceiling. Makoto leaned back just enough so that the tip of Ichigo's sword merely scratched his chin, sending a small spurt of blood into the air.

He swung his Zanpakuto over his head and sent it flying in at Ichigo's back, but Ichigo wasn't there anymore. He suddenly appeared on Makoto's other side and slashed at his exposed side. Another spurt of blood erupted from Makoto as he cried out and yanked back on the chain for the ball. It sailed in from behind Ichigo and stuck him in the shoulder, knocking him into the ground.

A blast of debris obscured Ichigo from everyone's sight for a moment. When they could see clearly again, they could see Ichigo lying on his back in a crater on the ground, bracing the ball with his sword from crushing his chest. Strands of black reiatsu burned up from his blade, fighting against the white energy that the sphere radiated as it pressed down on him.

"Ichigo!" Rukia cried, seeing him struggle.

Makoto turned and looked in her direction and grinned a split second before he sent his sword flying in her direction. Rukia brought up her own to deflect it, but as it neared, she could feel the intense crackle of power running along it. She knew if it hit her sword, it could still do some serious injury to it and her.

A blast of cold air was the only warning that Rukia had before a wall of ice shot in front of her, blocking the sword's path.

After sending the ice wall to protect Rukia, Hitsugaya flew in on his ice wings, aiming a strike at the chain to the ball that was still trying to grind Ichigo into the ground. Just as he brought back his sword for the swing, though, he heard a shatter. Looking back at the wall that he had created against the sword, he saw that the power on the blade had forced it right through the barrier, melting the ice as it went.

Luckily the barrier had slowed the sword enough to give Rukia time to get out of the way. It crashed into a rock, obliterating it in the process. But the distraction of it breaking through Hitsugaya's wall gave Makoto the time to snap back the ball and send it at Hitsugaya.

The captain snapped his wings shut just in time, but they were still all underestimating the raw power that it was putting out. The ball shattered the right wing and struck Hitsugaya in the shoulder, sending him flying across the practice grounds and smashing into another rock.

Ichigo was up now though and he quickly took in the destruction that this guy was wrecking now that he was drawing upon all that extra spirit energy. He could feel a massive amount of that energy was being created from Urahara's reiatsu, but he couldn't sense Ishida's anymore… That did not bode well.

They needed to do something about Makoto's use of power. They had tried to minimize their attacks to keep him from drawing on it, but that had only made him angry and now he was going all out. The only way that Ichigo could think of to put an end to it was to try and beat the fight out of him.

Ichigo braced himself and cried, "Getsuga Tensho!" A blast of black and red energy erupted from the end of his blade that he slung at Makoto. Both of the rouge's weapons were out in different directions, but as soon as he heard Ichigo's attack, he pulled them in, criss-crossing them in the path of Ichigo's attack. The strike was deflected and in the blinding flash that resulted, Makoto sent his sword after Ichigo.

Ichigo dodged, but the blade nicked his arm as it sailed by. With a sudden wave of weakness, Ichigo collapsed to the ground on one knee, just barely able to hold himself up by planting Zangetsu and leaning on it. "I have you now!" Makoto screamed as he pulled the blade back, sending it on a course for a second strike on the now weakened Ichigo. Ichigo tried to move himself, but he couldn't manage enough energy.

Suddenly Ichigo vanished in a spiral of black and red, just as the blade returned to him. Ichigo then fell out of Nova's portal just beside the mod-soul in Ishida's body with a gasp of pain. "Ichigo!" Rukia cried and was quickly at his side.

Ichigo could hardly move and Rukia saw that Nova hadn't been quite fast enough. There was a second slice across his cheek that the blade had just managed to rake when he fell into the portal. "Ichigo!" Rukia called again, placing her hand on his cheek and turning his head to face her.

His eyes weakly cracked open and looked at her a moment. He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't get the words out. His head then lulled to the side and his eyes rolled back as he fainted. "Ichigo!" Rukia called patting his face and then resorting to shaking his shoulders. "Ichigo!"

A laugh was quickly building from Makoto as he watched Rukia trying to wake Ichigo. "That's all it takes, huh?" He said. "Two nicks from Akiyo and he's out of it!"

Rukia stood and turned around to face Makoto. "Nova," she said. "Please take care of Ichigo."

"Aye," Nova replied and picked Ichigo up and teleported both of them further away.

"Your turn now?" Makoto said to her, bringing his weapons back in and returning to spinning them to either side.

Rukia took her stance, "Some no mai, Tsukishiro," she spoke softly. With an elegant slash, she set her Zanpakuto's first dance in motion. A white ring appeared below Makoto. The Shinigami looked down and saw the circle. He launched himself up into the air, thinking that he had avoided the attack. But suddenly a blast of ice erupted from the circle, shooting all the way to the sky ceiling, forming one giant pillar.

Makoto's form could still be seen through the ice, frozen about halfway up the pillar. Rukia sighed and lowered her sword. She was sure that her attack hadn't finished Makoto off, but she hoped that it had bought them some time.

She turned back and looked for where Nova had taken Ichigo. But as soon as her back was turned, Makoto burst from the ice and sent the ball flying at Rukia. She had just begun to turn around when the ball reached her, smashing into her shoulder and sending her flying through the air.

"Nee-san!" Kon cried out and ran on the ground after her. When he was below her, he jumped up into the air, catching her and then brought her back to the ground. "Nee-san, are you all right?" he asked her worriedly. Her shoulder had been smashed and was covered in blood. She turned her head and looked up at Kon in Urahara's body and promptly passed out.

"Nee-san!" Kon called to her. But he sensed that the ball was on a collision course with his back now. He launched himself into the air, allowing the ball to fly past beneath him. But it curved and followed his flight just as it passed below his feet.

He swore and lashed out at it with his leg. The shock blasted him back, throwing him into another rock. He curled himself protectively around Rukia's body as he impacted and fell to the ground. He did manage to deflect the ball though and send it off in another direction.

He sat there a moment, taking inventory and swore under his breath again. Urahara's leg was broken and his back would probably be one giant bruise in a minute. He was not looking forward to telling the shopkeeper that he had been the one that had received the injuries.

"Did you think I was finished with you?" Makoto called. Kon looked up and saw the Zanpakuto, Akiyo, spiraling point first for his head. With a gasp, he tried to move but his broken leg refused to cooperate how he wanted it to.

A blur of white suddenly crossed in front of Kon, blocking his vision of the impending blade. As the white past, he realized that the sword was no longer barreling down on him. He breathed a sigh of relief and then looked to see what had happened.

Captain Hitsugaya was streaking away with his right wing partially restored and right shoulder covered in blood and the chain of Akiyo clutched at the end of his tail, just behind the sword. Makoto gave a growl of frustration before yelling, "Did you think avoiding touching the blade would help you?"

Just like what happened when Chad had the chain wrapped around his arm, a blast of white power shot out from the ball and traveled along the chain. The sword built up a charge, ready to meet the flash of power at the same time at Hitsugaya's tail.

The Captain suddenly swung around in the air to face Makoto and flung the sword back at its wielder with terrible force. Makoto's eyes opened wide as he saw his blade now aimed at him, thrown with perfect timing to reach him just as the two blasts of power from the blade and the ball met on the chain.

A tremendous blast of white exploded around Makoto, hiding him from sight. But before anyone was able to see if it had hit him or not, Hitsugaya's voice carried over the field, "Guncho Tsurara!"

Traveling along the same path that he had sent the Zanpakuto, an arc of ice sliced through the wall of white. There was a sudden cry of pain from the center of the blast and then the sound of something impacting the ground.

XXX

The glow of white all around Ishida seemed to be intensifying as he searched desperately for some sign of where the center of this thing could be. The need to hurry was accentuated by the occasional cries of pain from Urahara in the distance. Time was running out for both of them and he still had no idea where this center could be.

Urahara had said that it would be where the spirit particles were being drawn to, but ever since arriving in this place, Ishida hadn't been able to see any spirit particles. Or rather, that was all he could see. As his eyes had come to adjust, he realized that the reason everything here was white was because it was all spirit particles.

The bleaching of himself and the other souls here was due to an over saturation of these particles. Ishida worked out that this bleaching made it easier for the Zanpakuto to drain their energy. It worked much like a digestion system… enzymes would break down food into its most basic parts. The most basic form of a soul was its spirit particles.

Ishida suddenly stopped short as something materialized in front of him. It was just as white as everything else and he was going to just walk around it, when something familiar seemed to strike a cord in him. Looking up, he saw another of the Shinigami echoes; but this one was that of his friend, Kurosaki Ichigo.

Ishida gasped and took a step back. If what he understood about Akiyo's powers was true, then this was not a good sign. A Shinigami couldn't be sucked into the sword as he and Urahara had, but their reiatsu was sucked into it, leaving the Shinigami either dead or dying.

"Kurosaki…" Ishida muttered as he took another step back and stared at what had to be the pure spirit power of Ichigo. If this was Ichigo's reiatsu, then did that mean that his friend that was trying to free him had been killed?

Ishida jumped as another white form brushed past him. Looking around, it seemed that all of the Shinigami shades were grouped in this area. But why would that be?

Suddenly Ishida understood, they were already in the most basic parts as they were. There was no need for to break them down because they were pure energy as it was. That meant that they would be drawn to wherever the particles were being absorbed… the center!

Ishida turned and was about to run back to Urahara to let him know that he had found what they were looking for, when a whisper of a voice sighed behind him. "Ishida?"

Ishida looked back and stared up at the form that resembled Ichigo. It didn't seem to have moved at all and there was no indication that it was the voice that he had heard. But he took a step back towards the echo and asked, "Kurosaki?"

"Ish…ida…" the voice said again, this time the Quincy saw that it was the figure of Ichigo that spoke.

"Kurosaki!" Ishida exclaimed. "What?…"

"You're alive," Ichigo said. "I'm sorry…"

"Shut up you damn Shinigami!" Ishida exclaimed. "So you were late, it happens. It was my own fault that I was too slow."

"Ishida…"

"I said shut up and listen to me, Kurosaki…" He reached out and grabbed Ichigo's arm. "I'm guessing that you aren't really dead yet. This little echo of you is nothing compared to the spiritual power that you actually possess. That means you're still out there, fighting. I don't know if the outside you can hear this, but you need to know. We've only got about ten minutes left before we're both turned into hollows. If we can't get out before then, you have got to end this."

"End?" Ichigo asked.

"End it! I do not want to become a hollow because you were too weak to do what is needed! Ten minutes, Kurosaki! If we're not out of here in ten minutes, you have to destroy this sword! No matter what!"

"Ishida…"

"Ten minutes!" Ishida exclaimed again and then released his hold on Ichigo and turned and ran away from the echo, heading back to Urahara. He hoped that his message was delivered because if their plan didn't work, he was counting on Ichigo to make sure that they didn't completely loose themselves.

XXX

Ichigo sat up with a sudden gasp and looked around. Beside him was Ishida… no Nova… but Ishida had been beside him a minute ago. At least, that's what he had thought.

Ichigo raised a hand to his head as he tried to sort out the images that he had just witnessed. Ishida had been talking to him, he had said something important…

"Ichigo?" Nova asked as he put a hand on Ichigo's shoulder.

Suddenly everything came back to him. He had been engulfed in whiteness and Ishida had been there. Ichigo had tried to apologize to his friend, but Ishida wouldn't listen. He had told him something, told him to do something…

"Ten minutes…" Ichigo muttered.

"Ichigo?" Nova asked, wondering what ten minutes had to do with anything.

Ichigo looked up and tried to spot Makoto. "We have ten minutes before we loose Ishida and Urahara," he said. He stabbed his sword into the ground and used it to pull himself up. Nova stood up behind him, offering him support.

Ichigo wavered as he tried to will strength into his body. He still felt completely sapped, but Ishida was counting on him. He had to find the strength to end this fight now, or he would never get his friends back.

"Ichigo, you're not well…" Nova tried to tell him, but Ichigo shook his head and pulled his sword from the dirt before staggering forward.

"I have to end this before it's too late," Ichigo said.

Hitsugaya hovered in the air just outside the column of dust that his attacks had created. He was panting from the effort of healing his ice form and then launching into that attack. He hoped that he had at least caused some damage to Makoto after all of that. He was surprised by how powerful this guy seemed to be. He was holding his own against so many powerful foes and slowly taking them out, one at a time.

The captain glanced down to where Kon had fallen, still holding onto the wounded Rukia. The mod soul had managed to get himself up and was now limping across the field below, carrying Rukia towards where Inoue was healing Chad.

Chad was still unconscious, but it appeared that Inoue had repaired most of his wounds except for his arm. That was still severely mangled, but was beginning to mend. Cloud was standing guard over Inoue and Chad in the form of Renji.

Hitsugaya searched the area for a sign of Ichigo and Nova, but he couldn't spot them. A chill ran down the captain's spine when he realized that he could no longer sense Ichigo. Did something happen to him?

With a gasp of surprise, Hitsugaya suddenly looked back where the dust was now settling. He could feel a flare of power spike from below. Looking down, he saw Makoto, standing in a crater created from his own impact. The Shinigami was staring up at the captain with murder in his eyes as his weapons began to glow even brighter than before.

"Why?" he screamed up at Hitsugaya. "Why do the captains protect a murderer?"

"Ichigo has murdered no one," Hitsugaya replied. "Your brother caused his own death."

"LIAR!" Makoto bellowed and launched himself into the air after Hitsugaya. He gripped his Zanpakuto in his hands and swung it maliciously at the captain.

Hitsugaya brought his own sword up to block and when the two blades connected, a shower of sparks, white and blue, erupted from the clash. What proceeded was a furious exchange of blows that any outside would have had difficultly following.

Makoto was relentless in his attacks, not giving Hitsugaya time to use any of his Zanpakuto's special abilities. With the speed that Makoto was moving, the captain had all he could to just keep the blade from hitting him and drawing out his spirit energy. "I will make that boy pay as well as anyone who gets in my way!" the rouge Shinigami roared.

In a flash, Makoto swung out the ball and encircled both himself and Hitsugaya with the chain, drawing them together. Hitsugaya collapsed his wings as Makoto used the tension in the chain to launch himself at the captain. He struck the ice wings, driving his sword in point first.

The ice stopped it at first, but as Makoto poured more power into his attack and continued to press on it, it began to slowly slide through the barrier. Makoto grinned manically as he whispered, "No one will stop me… not even the great tenth captain prodigy."

Suddenly a blast of black and red energy struck Makoto's sword, driving him and Hitsugaya apart. "What!" Makoto cried.

When he could see clearly again, he saw a black figure hovering in front of him where the captain had been a moment ago. A white mask with red markings covered the face of the figure and the orange hair that stuck up from behind the mask clearly showed it to be Ichigo.

"How can you be up?" Makoto demanded. "I struck you. I can feel your power inside of my sword!"

A slightly distorted voice of Ichigo replied, "I guess I have a few tricks up my sleeves yet." With that he launched himself at Makoto in a flash. Makoto just barely managed to deflect Zangetsu.

The rouge Shinigami blinked as he lost sight of Ichigo. Suddenly there seemed to be multiple Ichigos surrounding him. In frustration, he used both ends of his weapon and lashed out at as many images as he could. Still, he never connected with anything. As a sword, ball, or chain was about to hit, it would simply pass through, causing the image to vanish.

"You might be powerful," Ichigo said. "But you are not fast enough to track me."

Suddenly a punch connected with Makoto's face, sending him flying through the air and impacting with a rock. The impact was enough to drive him all the way through and continue on to slam into another rock before he was stopped.

He hung in the air, leaning back against the rock that had stopped him, taking deep breaths and trying to stave off the pain of the multiple injuries he just received. "Damn," he swore under his breath. "He's fast… powerful too. But I'll get him, brother… I'll avenge you."

He pushed himself away from the rock and once again began to swing his weapons to either side. The white glow from them intensified even further, causing them to appear to be two giant white orbs hovering to his right and left.

"Kurosaki!" he yelled. "I'll kill you!"

"You're just like him, you know," Ichigo said from above at the top of the rock.

Makoto gasped in surprise and looked up. Ichigo was standing there, still in his mask, looking down at him. "You don't know when to stop."

"Is that why you killed him, because he wouldn't give up?"

Ichigo starred at him a moment longer before dismissing his mask. Makoto was surprised to see sorrow on the young man's face. "I didn't kill him. I tried to warn him to stop, but he wouldn't listen to me."

"You killed him, you bastard! Don't try to deny it!" Makoto lashed out with his sword, but Ichigo was no longer on top of the rock. He reappeared in the air on the other side of Makoto.

"Makoto," he said softly. "I didn't kill him. It was your brother's need to be more powerful that killed him. He allowed his Bakkoto to eat him alive while trying to attain more power."

"That's a lie!" the ball flew at Ichigo, but he had already moved.

From another side of Makoto, Ichigo continued. "You are doing the same thing. You have hunted humans and your fellow Shinigami in the same search for power. But with every innocent death you have caused, another piece of your soul has died."

"Shut up!" Makoto launched himself at Ichigo this time. His blade clashed against Ichigo's crossing in between their bodies. "I have only sought the strength to destroy my brother's murderer."

"And have been destroying yourself in the process. Don't become eaten by your anger the same way he was eaten by his sword."

"I said SHUT UP!" He brought his sword back for a massive swing when suddenly a mighty CRACK sound echoed over the field. Makoto froze and looked at his blade. The crystal in the blade had a black crack running along the length of it. The brilliant white glow that had been gleaming in the blade and ball was suddenly extinguished and replaced by what looked like a black fog hovering around them.

"What…?" Makoto said as he stared dumbly at his Zanpakuto.

"It's over, Makoto," Ichigo said as he took a step back. "Please, let this end."

"What have you done?" Makoto asked Ichigo, a look of confusion and incrimination crossing him face.

Ichigo shook his head, "Those souls you have taken are fighting back. I didn't have to do anything this time." He took another step back, wondering what exactly was about to happen.

"Akiyo?" Makoto whispered to his blade. "Akiyo, what is happening?"

"No…" Makoto heard a whisper in the back of his mind. "No… my power… I can't lose the power…"

"Akiyo?" Makoto tried again, trying to find out what had happened to his Zanpakuto.

"I must have… more power."

The sound of cracking grew louder as more black veins spread through the crystal blade. Black fissures began to run along the ball and the chain started to crumble. "Akiyo, please…" Makoto pleaded, desperately trying to figure out what was happening.

With one last resounding crack, the blade and ball burst open, sending out a rush of blackness all around Makoto.

Ichigo brought up his arm to shield himself from the explosion. It took all of his strength not to be blown back from the rush of power. But where were Ishida and Urahara?


	7. Chapter 7

"Urahara-san!" Ishida exclaimed as he found the ex-Shinigami curled on the floor where he had left him. Where Urahara had appeared in his normal green, black, and white attire before Ishida had left him, now he had nearly been bleached out. There was still gray and pale green lingering in his clothing, but everything else was now completely white.

Ishida knelt beside him and placed his hand on Urahara's side. "Urahara-san! I found it!"

Urahara gave a shudder and slowly uncurled himself. With great difficulty, he looked up at Ishida. The Quincy forced himself to remain expressionless even as he was horrified by the expression on the shopkeepers face and the condition that he was in. Blood was trickling from his nose and corners of his mouth while deep pain lines showed across his face. Looking into his eyes, Ishida knew that Urahara was nearly at his limit. A quick glance at the soul chain confirmed that there wasn't a lot of time left.

"Urahara-san, I've found the center." He repeated.

With a shaking arm, Urahara reached out to Ishida. "Take…me…" he forced out.

Taking his arm, Ishida hauled Urahara's pain wracked body over his shoulders and half assisted, half dragged the man over to where the echoes of Shinigami were gathering. By the time they reached it, most of the echoes had already disappeared into the whiteness, including Ichigo's.

"Here," Ishida said as he indicated the place.

Urahara opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a cough of blood. Ishida lowered the man from his shoulders until Urahara was on his knees and Ishida was propping him up.

"What do I need to do?" Ishida asked.

Taking a few shuttering breathes, Urahara finally managed to force out some words. "You can't… I have to… use… Benihime."

Ishida looked and saw that Urahara was still gripping his cane in his right hand. "Can you do that like this?" Ishida asked, highly doubting the man was going to be able to be of any use in this condition.

"Must… try…" was the response. He tried to reach over and pull the wooden shaft from his sword, but his hands wouldn't cooperate. Ishida reached over and to remove the outer casing of the cane, revealing the Zanpakuto that was concealed inside.

With a gulp, Urahara said, "Stand… behind."

Ishida nodded and got up and stood behind Urahara, keeping his hands on him to help keep him upright. The ex-Shinigami planted the tip of his sword in the center of the area and muttered, "Sing…Ben…i…" Suddenly the whiteness flared in intensity and Urahara let out a scream of agony, releasing his grip on the sword and pitching forward.

"Urahara-san!" Ishida cried, still holding the man upright, but having to use all his strength to do so.

"Can't… can't…con…cen…trate," Urahara was muttering through the waves of pain.

Ishida saw that Urahara's chain was rapidly disappearing. Time was about up.

"Urahara-san, can you reverse it so that I take both of our pain?" Ishida asked as he knelt in front of Urahara.

The shopkeeper tried to look at Ishida, but couldn't manage to keep his eyes focused. "Kill…you," he whispered.

"I would estimate that you would have about thirty seconds before I would become a hollow," Ishida told him. "How long do you need?"

Urahara somehow managed to pull the corners of his mouth up in an attempt at a grin before breathing, "about… thirty… seconds."

"What do I do?" Ishida asked.

"Switch…cap…" his hand stated to point towards the cap that he had placed on Ishida's chain, but he couldn't manage to hold his hand up.

"Alright… Hold on, cause you better be ready as soon as I switch this."

Ishida leaned Urahara against him as he took a hold of both of their chains and brought the ends near each other. Taking a deep breath, Ishida quickly pulled the cap off of his chain and snapped it onto Urahara's

With a sudden flash, Ishida crumpled to the ground, completely engulfed in agony. If a thought could have entered his mind he would have wondered how Urahara had even managed words while in this state. All that he was able to do was scream as he laid on the ground in spasms.

The moment Ishida switched the drain, Urahara snatched up Benihime from the ground. He located the center again and concentrated. He could feel the flow of the particles through Benihime and was able to understand how it worked. As soon as he knew what needed to be done to reverse the flow, he traced a circle on the ground and said, "Sing, Benihime."

With a red flash, the circle that he had drawn on the ground suddenly became black. The black was quickly expanding outward as Urahara reached down and snatched up the ailing Quincy. He ran a short distance away from the circle before yanking the cap off of his soul chain and reattaching it to the tiny partial link that was left on Ishida's.

He staggered to his knees as he felt a wave of pain again through his body, but it was slackening. Soon there would be no draw on him at all. Ishida coughed and slowly straitened to be able to stand. He looked back and saw the blackness radiating outward towards them.

"What's happening?" he asked.

"I've reversed the flow. I think that we should be all right at this distance… to close and the sudden reversal would have overwhelmed us." Urahara was getting back up to his feet and watching as the blackness came nearer.

"Hold on! That's going to blast this place wide open! Isn't that a little dangerous?"

Urahara turned and smiled at Ishida. "What's life without a little danger?"

_Damn it,_ Ishida thought to himself. _This guy is more like Kurosaki that I realized_.

The expansion of the black was moving faster now and wouldn't be long before it reached them. Suddenly there was a cry of anger as Akiyo appeared beside them. "What have you done!" he exclaimed.

"I am very sorry," Urahara said to him. "I assume you are the manifestation of this lovely Zanpakuto. I do hate to have to harm such a beautiful sword, but you haven't left us a choice."

"You… You… You've done this! You're killing me and all you have to say is you're sorry!"

Urahara bowed his head and replied sincerely, "I am very sorry, Akiyo. But you have given your wielder far too much power. It is your job to make sure that your Shinigami doesn't go too far, doesn't slip down the wrong path. But you have only encouraged his anger as a means to gain more power for yourself."

Akiyo glared at Urahara. Slowly his body was beginning to take on color now. There was a dim hint of red in the eyes and streaks of black began to show in his hair. The cloak that he wore was taking on the hue of black as well and the shirt and pants turning a very dim blue. "I will kill you for this…" he said very softly.

Urahara sighed as he saw how very close the black was to them now. "Who knows, perhaps you will. But you must realize that what I have said is the truth. You have betrayed your master by pushing his need for revenge. The betrayal of a Zanpakuto is the worse offence there is."

He then shifted his foot forward and allowed a toe to touch the black. There was a snap and he pulled his foot back as a slight puff of smoke curled up from his toes. "Yikes!" he exclaimed, pushing Ishida back as he also moved away. "That's a little more powerful than I expected."

Ishida gapped at him, stunned that Urahara was taking all of this so lightly. "More powerful!" he snapped. "That's enough to kill us!"

Urahara looked at him and grinned, "But Ishida, We're already dead. What more could happen?"

Ishida was only able to stare blankly at the shopkeeper. _He's mad… He's completely insane_, he thought to himself.

Akiyo was laughing at them as they continued to back away from the black circle. "At least I'll know that you went down with me. You set this in motion and now it will destroy you."

Urahara turned and looked at Akiyo. He stared at the Zanpakuto with a look of sadness. "I am sorry, Akiyo," he said softly.

At that point, he and Ishida couldn't go any further; they had reached their limit. Ishida looked at the blackness, wondering what would happen to his soul when it hit. Would that be the end? Would he be annihilated?

Urahara was standing in front of him, the rim of the black almost touching. At the last second, he turned and faced Ishida, grabbing the boy and pulling him down. "Sing, Benihime," he said. A hexagonal dome of red light surrounded the two of them just as the black had reached their location. There was an explosion and a shockwave that knocked Ishida unconscious. As his awareness drifted to black, he marveled at how different it was from the white world he had just came from.

XXX

From below, Nova looked up and watched the explosion. In the middle of the blackness, he saw a red blaze shooting through the air. Inside he could see Urahara wrapped protectively around Ishida. The red shield had crumbled in places and was continuing to fade even as they flew through the air.

With not much more than a thought, Nova created a portal that snatched the two souls from the air and delivered them gently beside him. As they were deposited beside him, the last of Urahara's shield crumbled away. From the look of it, Ishida's soul had been mostly unharmed, just knocked unconscious. But Urahara appeared to have taken some of the blast himself. Parts of his outfit had been singed and power burns showed on one side of his face and on his back and arms.

Nova quickly pulled the two souls apart and looked over Urahara. Both of them needed to be reattached to their bodies before anything could be done for them. Nova reached into Ishida's uniform that he was wearing and pulled out what looked like a short piece of soul chain that was three lengths long. The two end links were left slightly open.

He looked around for Kon and spotted him some ways away, still limping over to where Inoue was, carrying Rukia. He quickly teleported Kon and Rukia next to Inoue and then prepared to move Ishida, Urahara, and himself there as well.

As his portal expanded, a hand shot out in the rush of blackness and grabbed a hold of Urahara's wrist. The shopkeeper's soul was snatched out of the portal, even as Nova and Ishida vanished through it. Across the field they reappeared and Nova jumped up and was about to teleport back when Cloud put his hand on Nova's arm and said, "No, wait!"

The blackness was dissipating and as it vanished, they could see the materialized form of Akiyo standing several meters from the unconscious form of his Shinigami. He held a katana in one hand, which was set at the throat of Urahara's soul that he held up with the other hand.

"Urahara!" Ichigo cried out as he saw what was happening.

He started to move towards Akiyo but the Zanpakuto looked at him and said, "One step and I will kill this soul."

Ichigo froze where he was, uncertain what to do.

Akiyo looked around the practice field and spotted everyone that he had been battling with as a sword not that long ago. Hitsugaya was still hovering in the air, not far behind Ichigo. He had blood running down his right arm and looked pretty beat up.

Rukia was still unconscious in Kon's arms and the mod soul was sitting on the ground with is leg at an awkward angle. Inoue had just dismissed the healing dome on Chad, and though it appeared that his injuries were now healed, he was also still unconscious. Cloud and Nova were the only ones that didn't appear to have sustained much damage.

Glancing back at Ichigo, Akiyo saw that the substitute Shinigami was still greatly weakened and just staying up in the air where he was was costing him even more energy.

Finally, Akiyo looked over at his master. He was bloodied and bruised all over and his uniform had been blown to shreds. He lay on the ground, unconscious and unmoving. "You were too weak…" Akiyo muttered to Makoto. "You were unworthy of me."

"He was your master!" Ichigo yelled back at Akiyo. "You were created by his soul! How can he be unworthy of you!"

"He failed me. I offered him the power to achieve his revenge and he failed! He lost that power and now I have to get it back!" He tightened his grip on the sword and pressed it a little harder against Urahara's neck. "Starting with you…" he whispered to the unconscious shopkeeper.

"No!" Ichigo yelled as he took another step towards them.

But it was Makoto's voice that caused Akiyo to pause. "Stop, Akiyo," he said softly. Makoto was struggling to get up as he slowly came back to consciousness. "Release him."

Akiyo glared at his master and asked, "You would deny me power? You would deny yourself power?"

Makoto glanced up at Ichigo before saying, "The pursuit of power is what has gotten us to this point. Kurosaki Ichigo is right, we have been destroying ourselves in the pursuit of pointless revenge."

Akiyo barked out a laugh before asking, "What about your brother? Doesn't his death deserve revenge? Or do you believe this boy's lies?"

"Whether or not I believe him is doesn't matter. If I'm being completely honest with myself, I do believe that it is possible of my brother to have died from desire for more power. But whether or not that is true, it does not excuse what I have become. I have murdered far more in my desire for power than I have accused Kurosaki of murdering. I have lost myself in my pursuit of vengeance and your lust for power."

Akiyo stood there, glaring at his Shinigami. "I was right, you don't deserve me. And I will take every last drop of not only this soul's power, but also everyone here to prove that to you. And when I have defeated you, I'll steal your power as well."

"Stop this!" a voice rang out behind Akiyo. The Zanpakuto looked over his shoulder and saw Ishida standing there, full bow aimed at his back, drawn and ready. "Release him, Akiyo!" Ishida demanded. "Or you'll be the next one to die."

"Ishida!" Ichigo exclaimed. It was actually Ishida, in his body, that was standing there. He could sense his friend standing there, very much alive.

Akiyo continued to look over his shoulder at the Quincy before scoffing. "You're still too weak to be able to threaten me. I nearly drained every last drop of your reiatsu. It was only because of this man that you're even still human." Akiyo indicated Urahara.

"Which is why I am telling you, let him go!"

Urahara's soul groaned and started to move his head at that point. Ichigo, who could see Urahara the clearest, saw that the ex-Shinigami seemed to be in pain, but couldn't manage to quite return to consciousness.

"Let him go?" Akiyo said. "I'll let him go… as soon as I have taken back what he stole from me."

Ichigo noticed that the last four links that remained on Urahara's chain were beginning to fade. He was suddenly reminded of the time when Urahara had been training him after he had lost his Shinigami powers. Ichigo's own soul chain had begun to corrode much like that, causing him incredible pain.

"You bastard!" Ichigo cried and launched himself at the Zanpakuto.

Ichigo was suddenly brought up short when Makoto stepped in his way. "I'll take care of this, Kurosaki. It is my Zanpakuto, I should be the one to stop it."

Ichigo stared at Makoto's back, stunned at the turn of events. He wanted to cut down that Zanpakuto. He wanted to stop the pain that it was causing his friend and to take revenge on it for all the suffering that it had caused all of them. But Makoto was right. It was his Zanpakuto… it was a part of his own soul. He had a right to be the one to put a stop to it.

"Put him down, Akiyo," Makoto told the sword. "Let us finish this, just you and me. We'll see who is worthy of whom."

Akiyo grinned at his Shinigami, tightened his grip on Urahara for a moment, and then cast the soul aside. "Let's see then…"

Ishida watched as Urahara's soul was cast aside, released from the threat of the Zanpakuto. As soon as the Quincy saw that the danger had passed, he crumpled to his knees, bow and arrow disappearing in a flash. Akiyo had been right, he didn't know if he had the strength to fire a single arrow in the condition that he was in, but he knew that he had to try.

Ichigo also had been waiting for Urahara's release. As soon as his friend's soul was let go and Akiyo launched into an attack on his Shinigami, Ichigo used his Shunpo to be at Urahara's side in a flash. Gently, he picked up the soul from the ground and then flash stepped his way over to where Kon, still in Urahara's body, sat.

"Kon!" Ichigo called as he laid the soul on the ground beside him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know…" Kon said, but sounded more worried than he was letting on. He reached into a pocket and brought out the same three links that Nova had. Taking the end of the soul chain in his chest, he linked one end there. As soon as the chain had been attached, the half open link seal itself closed. As soon as that was done, Kon attached the other end to the chain on Urahara's soul. As the link also sealed itself, Kon's spirit pill was suddenly ejected from Urahara's body.

It was Cloud that reached out and grabbed it before it hit the ground. He gently placed it in a pocket along with Nova's.

Ichigo then lifted Urahara's soul again and laid it into his body. Slowly the damage that had been done to the soul began to show on the body. "Inoue!" Ichigo called.

The girl nodded and came over and took Ichigo's place beside Urahara. She created her healing dome around the shopkeeper's body and all of them waited to see some result.

Ichigo glanced around and saw that Rukia, though still unhealed, was again conscious. Hitsugaya had also made his way over to them and seemed just as anxious for the former twelfth squad's captain.

As he continued to look around, Ichigo noticed Ishida had made his way back over to them. He was kneeling on the ground, looking completely drained. Ichigo wanted to say something to him, but he just didn't know what.

The Quincy looked up at him and their eyes met. "Ishida…" Ichigo started.

Ishida looked at him a moment, but when Ichigo couldn't find the words, the Quincy looked away as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "I already told you, Kurosaki, none of this was your fault."

"But… Ishida, I…"

"Kurosaki… You didn't fail me. I failed to protect myself. It was you and everyone else that didn't give up on me and has brought me back. Thank you, Ichigo."

Ichigo stared at Ishida with mixed emotions on what the Quincy had just said to him. Ishida thought that he hadn't given up… but the truth was that he had, if only for a moment. Ichigo was going to try and explain this to Ishida, but just then there was a moan from under the golden light of Inoue's healing dome.

"Urahara-san!" Cloud exclaimed as the ex-Shinigami began to open his eyes.

He weakly cracked his lids open and blinked a few times before finally looking up at Inoue. "That bad, huh?" he asked her when he saw her serious expression.

She didn't respond other than to increase her concentration on her rejection powers. "Urahara-san," Ichigo said quietly. "Are you alright?"

Weakly he looked over at Ichigo and gave him a thumbs-up just before his eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious again. Ichigo sighed. Yeah, it looked like Urahara was going to be just fine.

"Inoue-san," Ishida said quietly. "Please take good care of him."

"Mm," was the only response she gave as she nodded her head.

Ichigo glanced at Ishida sideways. It wasn't like the Quincy to show suck outward concern, especially for a Shinigami. What had happened inside that sword between these two?

But everything seemed well in hand here for now. Turning around, Ichigo looked to see how the fight between Shinigami and Zanpakuto was going. The two were on the ground, facing off to one another. From the looks of it, both had already sustained quite a bit of damage. They were both breathing hard and had blood dripping from multiple wounds.

Ichigo realized that they were both about to go for a final strike as they eyed each other across the practice field. "Let's end this, Akiyo," Makoto said, bringing his katana up.

"You would kill me? You would kill a piece of your own soul after I offered my help to avenger your brother?"

"Offered help? Now that I am thinking clearly, I seem to recall that it was you who convinced me that vengeance was needed. Wasn't it you who told me that it was my duty to avenger Hanza?"

"It was what you wanted, you just needed help to see that."

Makoto shook his head and spared a slight glance in Ichigo's direction. "No. I think I always knew that Hanza had been the one in the wrong. I just didn't want to believe it. But you wanted me to see Kurosaki Ichigo as the villain because I would be forced to become stronger. And the only way for me to become stronger in a hurry was to turn on my fellow Shinigami. It was your lust for more power that convinced me to turn on them."

Akiyo glared at the Shinigami and brought up his own katana. "You're right, Tadaaki, let's end this."

In a flash, both combatants launched at each other. Both of them were going all out, giving everything they had left in this final stroke. A thunderous clang rang out through the field as a plume of dust obscured them from everyone else's vision.

When the dust settled, both men were still standing, frozen in a tableau with swords still raised after carrying through their strikes. Suddenly a spurt of blood showered forth from a slice across Akiyo's front. The Zanpakuto staggered and then fell to the ground.

Makoto slowly lowered his sword and turned around to look at the manifestation of his sword. "I am sorry, Akiyo. But we won't be parted for long." Another fountain of blood suddenly sprayed from an identical slash across Makoto's chest.

As the Shinigami began to fall over, Ichigo jumped up and ran to him. "Makoto!" he called and dropped down beside him.

"It's over," Makoto muttered into the ground.

Ichigo reached down and turned him over. Blood was quickly soaking the ground below him. Makoto was right; it was over. "Makoto…" Ichigo said, not sure what to say to the man.

"Thank you, Kurosaki. You pulled me back in time. Now I can die knowing the truth and repentant for what I have done."

"Makoto, I was wrong. You are nothing like your brother…"

With a slight sad smile, Makoto laid his head back as his eyes slowly drifted closed.

Ichigo glanced up at Akiyo and saw the body slowly fading away. Sword and master had killed each other.


	8. prolog

Ishida stood outside the door where Urahara was resting. He had been standing there a few minutes, debating whether or not he really wanted to have this conversation. Finally, Urahara's voice called from inside. "Please come in, Ishida. I won't bite."

Ishida sighed; of course Urahara could sense him out there. Pushing his glasses up, he slid the door open and stepped inside. Urahara was lying down, propped up by a few pillows so that he could comfortably read while recuperating.

"Urahara-san," Ishida said with a slight bow to the shopkeeper.

"My, my, awfully formal today, aren't we?" Urahara said as he set his book down beside him.

"Urahara-san," Ishida said. "I just wanted to say, thank you."

After a moment of studying Ishida's face Urahara asked, "There is something that you want to ask me, isn't there?" He motioned for Ishida to sit beside him.

Ishida hesitated a moment and then walked over and knelt next to Urahara. He sat there a moment, looking down at a spot on the floor between himself and Urahara for a moment. "Urahara-san, why did you do it?"

"Why did I risk myself for you? Is that what you would like to know?"

Ishida nodded.

The ex-Shinigami leaned back into his pillow and sighed. "Ishida, you should know by now that I care for all of you very much."

"But you usually don't risk yourself for us, Urahara-san. And what you did… It was more than anyone should have ever expected of you."

Urahara was silent for a long time as he sat back, eyes closed, thinking. "Everything that has ever happened to all of you is mostly my fault." He finally said, eyes still closed. "I have used all of you to correct my mistakes when possible. I am naturally a lazy man, after all. But this time there was something that only I could do. And though I probably would have done it simply for your own sake, Ishida, there was everyone else to consider too. If I had left you for dead, what do you think that would have done to Ichigo?"

Ishida looked up at Urahara but the shopkeeper was still lying back with his eyes closed. "He would never forgive himself…" Ishida said quietly.

"Correct. The same goes for everyone else in your group. But Ichigo would have been devastated. There was no other way that I could see to get the job done fast enough than to use myself."

"Still, what you did…"

Urahara cracked and eye open and looked at Ishida. "What I did was what needed to be done. You are important to too many people, Ishida Uryu. Your loss would have been devastating to everyone… Myself included."

Ishida looked at Urahara and wondered how he could have missed this side of the ex-Shinigami before. Ishida had always considered Urahara to be something of a mad genius, but not someone who would ever risk his own life for another. There was always a detached air to the shopkeeper up until now and Ishida had never realized how strongly he actually felt for them.

"Thank you, Urahara-san." He said again and bowed his head.

"Besides," Urahara said with a relaxed air. "Sitting on the sidelines can get kind of boring after a while. I thought I was due for some excitement for a change."

Ishida looked at Urahara, no longer sure which side on this guy's ever changing personality was really him. Had everything he just said been nothing more than an act? Or was his jovial attitude the act?

Ishida shook his head as he got up and left the shopkeeper to himself. Perhaps Urahara was both sides in one; he probably would never really find out.


End file.
